Bell, Marie

Bell, Marie [ Marie-Jeanne Bellon] (1900–85), outstanding French actress, who appeared from 1921 at the Comédie-Française, notably in a number of classical tragic roles including Racine's Phèdre, Bérénice, and Agrippine (in Britannicus), and in Cocteau's Renaud et Armide (1943). She was also seen at other theatres in Paris in modern plays including Barrault's production of Claudel's Le Soulier de satin (1943). Having left the Comédie-Française in 1953, she managed the Théâtre du Gymnase from 1959 until her death, both acting and directing there. She was seen in the first productions of Félicien Marceau's La Bonne Soupe (1959) and Genet's Le Balcon (1960), and in 1973 in a version of William Douglas Home's Lloyd George Knew My Father as Ne coupez pas mes arbres. She also staged there such works as Herb Gardner's A Thousand Clowns and Arthur Miller's After the Fall. In the 1930s she had a distinguished career in films.