Premier Rendez-vous - Danielle Darrieux

1st May: Danielle Darrieux is 91, and a career of 77 years in the cinema.
Here is her most famous song, "First date", in 1941, with her photos, from 1931 to today.

She is the daughter of an army doctor who died when she was seven years old. Raised in Paris she studied the cello and piano at the Conservatoire de Musique. At 13, she got a part in the musical film Le Bal (1931). Her beauty combined with her singing and dancing ability led to numerous other offers.


She signed with Universal Studios to star opposite Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in The Rage of Paris (1938).

Under the German occupation of France during World War II, she continued to perform, a decision that was severely criticized by her compatriots, but the manager of the German Continental threatened to deport her brother to Germany.

She returned to Hollywood to make the 1951 MGM musical, Rich, Young and Pretty after several years in Europe. Joseph L. Mankiewicz lured her to star opposite James Mason in 5 Fingers (1952). Back home, she appeared in The Red and the Black (1954). The next year she starred in Lady Chatterley's Lover. Due to its content, the film was banned by the Catholic censors in the United States.

In 1953 she starred opposite Charles Boyer and Vittorio de Sica in Max Ophul's French-Italian production "The Earrings of Madame de..." (known in France simply as "Madame de..."). Approaching 40, she played a supporting role in United Artists' epic Alexander the Great (1955) starring Richard Burton and Claire Bloom; it was her last American film. In 1961 she went to England at the request of director Lewis Gilbert to star opposite Kenneth More in The Greengage Summer. In 1963, she starred in the romantic comedy La Robe Mauve de Valentine at the Chatelet Theatre in Paris. The play was adapted from the novel by Francoise Sagan.

Darrieux replaced Katharine Hepburn in the Broadway musical, Coco, based on the life of Coco Chanel, and in 1971-72 she also appeared in the short-lived productions of Ambassador. She has continued to work, her career now spanning eight decades, most recently providing the voice of the protagonist's grandmother in the animated feature "Persopolis" (2007) which deals with the impact of the Iranian Islamic revolution on a girl's life as she grows to adulthood.
(wikipedia)