Simon, Simone (1910–2005)

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Simon, Simone (1910–2005)

French actress. Born April 23, 1910, in Béthune, France; died Feb 22, 2005, in Paris, France; dau. of engineer father and Italian mother; never married; no children.

Worked briefly as a fashion designer and model before being discovered by Russian director Victor Tourjansky, who offered her a part in Le Chanteur inconnu (1931); after roles in several additional French films, among them Mam'zelle Nitouche (1931), Le Lac aux Dames (1934) and Les Beaux Jours (1935), made US debut in Girls' Dormitory (1936), followed by Seventh Heaven (1937), Love and Hisses (1937) and Josette (1938); despite growing popularity in US, returned to France; following her glowing performance in Claude Renoir's La Bête humaine (The Human Beast, 1938), returned to Hollywood for Cat People (1942) and its sequel Curse of the Cat People (1943), now considered classics; continued to make French, English and European movies (mid-1950s), then was not seen on screen again until 1973, when she appeared in La Femme en Bleu; also appeared in La Ronde (1950), Olivia (Pit of Loneliness, 1951) and La Plaisir (House of Pleasure, 1952), among others.

See also Women in World History.