Michèle Morgan (1920–2016)

Michèle Morgan, née Simone Renée Roussel, was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a well-to-do suburb of Paris, and grew up in Dieppe. She left home for Paris at the age of 15 determined to become an actress. She took lessons from drama teacher René Simon while serving as an extra in several films to pay for them. It was at this time that she took the stage name Michèle Morgan. She came to the notice of director Marc Allégret, who offered her a major role in the film Gribouille (1937). Her next film, the now-classic Le Quai des brumes (1938), directed by Marcel Carné, opposite Jean Gabin, launched her into stardom. After Nazi Germany invaded France in 1940 in World War II, Morgan left for the USA and Hollywood, where she was put under contract by RKO Pictures. Her career there proved disappointing to her, apart from Joan of Paris (1942) and Higher and Higher (1943). She tested and was strongly considered for the role of Ilse Lund in Casablanca, but RKO would not release her for the amount of money that Warner Bros. offered. Morgan did eventually work for Warners, however, in Passage to Marseille (1944) with Humphrey Bogart. After the war, Morgan returned to France and quickly resumed her career with the film La Symphonie Pastorale (1946), which earned her the inaugural Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival. Her other films from this period included The Fallen Idol (1948), Fabiola (1949), The Proud and the Beautiful, Les Grandes Manœuvres (1955), and Marie-Antoinette reine de France (1956). She continued working in films throughout the 1960s, and is considered to have been one of the great French actresses of the 20th century. Morgan virtually retired from her acting career in the 1970s, making only occasional appearances in film, television and theatre. In 1969, the government of France awarded her the Légion d'Honneur. For her long service to the French motion picture industry, she was given an Honorary César Award in 1992. Four years later, she also received the Golden Lion Honorary Award for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival. Morgan took up painting in the 1960s and had a solo exhibition, "Artistes En Lumière à Paris," in 2009 at the Espace Cardin in Paris. In 1977. she published her memoirs, Avec ces yeux-là (English translation, With Those Eyes). Morgan was married in 1942 to William Marshall, with whom she had a son before they divorced in 1948. She married French actor Henri Vidal in 1950 and remained with him until his death in 1959. She then lived with film director and actor/writer Gérard Oury until his death in 2006.