Micheline Presle

Elegant, dark-haired Parisian Micheline Presle (billed in the U. S. as Micheline Prelle) was born on August 22, 1922, the daughter of a businessman whose surname was Chassagne.

At the beginning of the 40's, she was engaged to Louis Jourdan, whom she fist met during a holiday in St.Tropez in 1938. They were close to getting married at one point, but eventually broke up in a hard way. Jourdan took this so badly that, when he was reunited with Micheline in Twilight (1944), he refused to speak any word to her except for when they were in front of the camera. Micheline was initially irritated by this, but eventually ended up laughing at the whole thing.

Taking acting classes as a teen, she was discovered by Georg Wilhelm Pabst and cast in Jeunes filles en détresse (1939) (portraying Jacqueline Presle, whose last name she chose as her own marquee name). Very early into her film career, she was awarded the Prix Suzanne Bianchetti as the" most promising young actress" in French cinema.

While Micheline proceeded to make movies during the Occupation with such offerings as Four Flights to Love (1940) (dual role), La comédie du bonheur (1940), Foolish Husbands (1941), La nuit fantastique (1942), Twilight (1944), and Paris Frills (1945), she was regarded as an important young French star in the post -war years when she appeared in the classic films Angel and Sinner (1945) and, in particular, Devil in the Flesh (1947), both gaining her world-wide notice.

She was named Best French actress of 1942 by the press for her performance in La nuit fantastique (1942).

In her autobiography 'L'arrière-memoire', she tells a funny anecdote about shooting Twilight (1944) in Toulon with Danièle Delorme. They were staying together at the Victoria Hotel and, during breaks from shooting, they used to play a game: they liked to go at the clothes shop 'Dames De France', where Danièle used to steal everything she could put her hands on and hide it in Micheline's purse. One day they were caught by a couple of policemen and, to help her and Danièle's position, Micheline thought of suggesting the two to contact her friends at the hotel. This remark actually ended up irritating the policemen because, unbeknownst to the two actresses, the hotel was actually full with Gestapo officers. Micheline and Danièle so spent a couple hours in a jail cell before being bailed out by director Marc Allégret and actor Claude Dauphin. One day after the accident, one of the two cops brought Micheline flowers on the set of the film. After standing trial for the crime, the actress was sentenced to a jail period of two months with parole. Her criminal record was deleted a couple years later.

Was cast as the title heroine in Angel and Sinner (1945) after Viviane Romance declined the role. Thinking her too slender for the part, the producer first sent her on a holiday on the Pyrenees to gain weight.

She was named Best French Actress of 1947 by the press for her performance in Devil in the Flesh (1947).

After a brief post-war marriage to Michel Lefort, Micheline's second marriage to American actor-turned-producer William Marshall in 1949 led her to attempt Hollywood pictures.

Receiving a 20th Century-Fox contract, none of the those pictures, which included Under My Skin - The Heart of Adoption (1950), American Guerrilla in the Philippines (1950) and Adventures of Captain Fabian (1951), the last one produced and directed by husband Marshall, captured the hearts of American audiences despite co-starring opposite Hollywood's top male superstars stars at the time -- John Garfield, Tyrone Power and Errol Flynn.

Some of her post-Hollywood films (mid-1950's on) included House of Ricordi (1954), Royal Affairs in Versailles (1954) (as Madame de Pompadour), Her Bridal Night (1956), Demoniac (1957), Mistress of the World (1960), Imperial Venus (1962) (as Napoleon's Josephine), Dark Purpose (1964), The Nun (1966), King of Hearts (1966), Donkey Skin (1970), The Legend of Frenchie King (1971), L'événement le plus important depuis que l'homme a marché sur la Lune (1973), Néa (1976), Démons de midi (1979), Les voleurs de la nuit (1984), Good Weather, But Stormy Late This Afternoon (1986), High Finance Woman (1990), FanFan (1993), Les misérables (1995) and Le journal du séducteur (1996).

She was offered the role of Countess Anna Staviska in Five Fingers (1952), but she had to turn it down due to pregnancy. Danielle Darrieux was cast instead.

She's never been particularly fond of L'amour d'une femme (1953), which is now regarded as one of her best films, mainly for two reasons. The first is that she didn't find her characters' reasons very believable in the writing. The other is that she felt her co-star Massimo Girotti was too attractive for his role and his performance would've been more effective had he been allowed to act with his natural Italian accent instead of getting dubbed.

Divorced in 1954, Micheline never truly adjusted to the Hollywood way of life and returned quite willingly to Paris with her daughter, the future actress/director Tonie Marshall.

Member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1959.

She would, however, return briefly to America in the early 1960's to appear in the Dee/Darin comedy fluff If a Man Answers (1962) and the spy drama The Prize (1963). The supremely talented Micheline continued to reign supreme back in Europe and appeared frequently on the stage as well.

In 1961, she was passing by 'La Rotonde' cinema in Paris with her car when she saw the poster of Jacques Demy's Lola (1961). She was so intrigued by it that she rushed to see the film. Once the movie ended, she called her agent on the phone, asking him who Demy was and stating that she would have liked to meet him. The director later cast the actress in three of his movies.

She was considered for the role of Madame Emery in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), but she eventually declined it because director Jacques Demy wouldn't have allowed her to do her own singing. Anne Vernon was cast instead.

She left Les saintes chéries (1965) after three seasons because the show had been so successful that she feared people wouldn't remember her for anything else.

Became good friends with Françoise Fabian while working with her in a stage production of Georges Feydeau's 'A Flea in the Ear' in the late 60's. They were so inseparable at the time that François Truffaut nicknamed them 'Les Petites Marguerites' after Vera Chytilová's Daisies (1966) (which was released in France with that title).

Out of the three most successful French actresses of her time (the other two being Danielle Darrieux and Michèle Morgan), Micheline was the only one not to have her career remotely damaged by the coming of the French New Wave and subsequent consecration of a new type of actor. Morgan- a frequent target of François Truffaut back when he served as a critic of the 'Cahiers du Cinéma'- largely fell under the radar in the 60's and did just a handful of minor film appearances after that. With the exception of a key role in Jacques Demy's The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), Darrieux mostly appeared in unremarkable movies in the 60's, was basically absent from 70's cinema and started to put her career back on track only in the 80's. Claude Chabrol cast both actresses in small roles in his Bluebeard (1963) as victims of Charles Denner's murderous title villain who are later incinerated and go up in smoke. Micheline, on the other hand, always kept doing solid work and was object of great admiration from the New Wave directors. Jacques Rivette offered the actress one of her best roles in his masterpiece The Nun (1966), Alain Resnais provided her with a César-nominated part in I Want to Go Home (1989) and Chabrol offered her a punchy cameo in The Blood of Others (1984). Micheline herself had been one of the first champions of the French New Wave since she had served as Jury member at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, where she was won over by Resnais' Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) and Truffaut's The 400 Blows (1959) .

She mainly agreed to appear in The Legend of Frenchie King (1971) under the direction of Guy Casaril to sing a song in a scene with Claudia Cardinale. When Christian-Jaque replaced Casaril as director and re-edited the movie, most of scene was cut and the song could just be heard for an instant in the background.

She was the one to suggest the title for her movie Le boucher, la star et l'orpheline (1975).

Claude Chabrol cast her in The Blood of Others (1984), one of the many projects he had accepted against the grain and chosen to handle in the most superficial way as possible. When Micheline asked him if he had any ideas about how she should have played her character, he replied that he didn't. The actress eventually played the role to good reviews, leading the director to tell her with self-irony that she had been much more praised than the film itself.

Festival tribute at the Créteil International Women's Film Festival, France. [1987]

Into the millennium, Micheline graced a large number of French films such as Le coeur à l'ouvrage (2000), Charmant garçon (2001), Le diable dans la boîte (1977), Transfixed (2001), France Boutique (2003) (directed by daughter Tonie), Grabuge! (2005), Plein sud (2009), Comme des frères (2012) and her last, an unbilled part in Sex, Love & Therapy (2014).

She's a member of the ADMD (The World Federation of Right to Die Societies) Honorary Committee. She signed a document in 2009 in favour of the legalization of euthanasia.