Madeleine Lebeau
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Marie Madeleine Berthe Lebeau (10 June 1923 – 1 May 2016) was a French film actress.
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Early life
Lebeau married actor Marcel Dalio in 1939; it was his second marriage. They had met while performing a play together. In 1939 she appeared in her first film, the melodrama Jeunes filles en détresse (Girls in Distress).
In June 1940, Lebeau and Dalio (who was Jewish; born Israel Moshe Blauschild) fled Paris ahead of the invading German Army and reached Lisbon. They are presumed to have received transit visas from Aristides de Sousa Mendes, allowing them to enter Spain and journey on to Portugal. It took them two months to obtain visas to Chile.
However, when their ship, the S.S. Quanza, stopped in Mexico, they were stranded, along with around 200 other passengers, when the Chilean visas they had purchased turned out to be forgeries. Eventually, they were able to get temporary Canadian passports and entered the United States.Template:Cn
Lebeau made her Hollywood debut in 1941 in Hold Back the Dawn, which featured Olivia de Havilland in a leading role. The following year, she appeared in the Errol Flynn movie Gentleman Jim, a biography of Irish-American boxer James J. Corbett.
Casablanca
Later that year she was cast in the role of Yvonne, Humphrey Bogart's jilted mistress, in Casablanca. Warner Bros. signed her to a $100-a-week contract for twenty-six weeks to be in a number of films. On 22 June, while she was filming her scenes in Casablanca, her husband, Marcel Dalio, who played Emil the croupier in the same film, filed for divorce in Los Angeles on the grounds of desertion. They divorced in 1942. Shortly before the release of the film, Warner Bros. terminated her contract. After Joy Page died in April 2008, Lebeau was the last surviving credited cast member of Casablanca.
After Casablanca
Following Casablanca, Lebeau appeared in two further American films. The first was a large role in the war drama Paris After Dark (1943), with her former husband. The following year, Lebeau had a smaller role in Music for Millions.
After the end of the Second World War, Lebeau returned to France and continued her acting career. She appeared in Les Chouans (The Royalists, 1947) and worked in Great Britain, appearing in a film with Jean Simmons, Cage of Gold (1950).
Later years
She would appear in 20 more films, mainly French, including Une Parisienne (1957), with Brigitte Bardot as the star, and Federico Fellini's 8½ (1963). Lebeau's last two films were Spanish productions in 1965.
In 1988, she married, thirdly, to Italian screenwriter Tullio Pinelli who had contributed to the script of 8½.
Death
Lebeau died on 1 May 2016 in Estepona, Spain, after breaking her thigh bone.
Selected filmography
- Casablanca (1942)
- Paris After Dark (1943)
- Music for Millions (1944)
- Une Parisienne (1957)
- 8½ (1963)
