Actress and star of Casablanca
Born: June 10, 1923;
Died: May 1, 2016
MADELEINE LeBeau, who has died aged 92, was a French actress known for her small but significant role in Casablanca as the woman who passionately sings La Marseillaise at a pivotal moment in the film.
Her big moment comes during the scene where the patrons of the cafe run by Humphrey Bogart’s character Rick stand up and sing La Marseillaise in an attempt to drown out a song being sung by a group of German soldiers. The camera zooms in on LeBeau's face, and her glassy, tearful eyes. As the song nears its close, LeBeau shouts "Vive la France!"
The scene represented a moment of redemption for LeBeau’s character, who earlier in the film is seen dating a German officer. She is also a former lover of Rick’s and their encounters are some of the most memorable in the film. “Where were you last night?” she asks Rick at one moment. “That’s so long ago, I don’t remember,” he says. “Will I see you tonight,” asks Yvonne. “I never make plans that far ahead.”
LeBeau hoped that the role in Casablanca would be an important step to stardom in Hollywood, but in the end it was the peak of her career.
Born in the southern suburbs of Paris in 1923, LeBeau first appeared on screen in the 1939 French film Young Girls In Trouble. The next year, she and her then-husband, the actor Marcel Dalio fled France ahead of the Nazi invasion, eventually making their way to the United States.
There LeBeau won a contract with Warner Bros and appeared in minor roles in the Olivia de Havilland film Hold Back The Dawn and the Errol Flynn drama Gentleman Jim, a bio-pic about the boxer Jim Corbett in which LeBeau played the Polish stage star Anna Held. She then scored the role of Yvonne in Casablanca in 1942.
Dalio, who was 23 years LeBeau's senior, also appeared in Casablanca as Emil the croupier and filed for divorce from LeBeau during production on the grounds of desertion. They were divorced that year, and, according to reports, her Warner Bros contract was terminated before the release of the film.
LeBeau then completed Hollywood features Paris After Dark, also with Dalio, in which she played a cafe owner who is secretly helping the resistance in Nazi-occupied Paris. There was another film Music For Millions before she returned to France after the war where she appeared in films like Cage Of Gold and Une Parisienne.
Though she never gained significant international renown, she worked steadily in France throughout the 1950s until she stopped acting on screen in the late 1960s. She appeared as a nightclub singer in the 1950 British film Cage of Gold starring Jean Simmons.
She also had a small role in Federico Fellini's avant-garde classic 8 1/2 as a French actress. In 1988, she married 8 1/2 co-writer Tullio Pinelli, who died in 2009.
LeBeau's last on-screen credit was in the French television series Allo Police.
The actress died on May 1 in Spain, after suffering a thigh-bone fracture, her stepson Carlo Alberto Pinelli said. LeBeau was the second wife of Mr Pinelli's father, Tullio Pinelli.
Carlo Alberto Pinelli said LeBeau was cremated, and her ashes will be brought to Italy sometime in the coming months to be placed in the family tomb.
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