Cat People and Curse of the Cat People: Simone Simon (Irena Dubrovna Reed) was born Simone Thérèse Fernande Simon in France in 1910. She grew up in Madagascar, but returned to France as a young woman and became a dress designer before getting her start in films. Her sexy pout and her ability to play both sweet and evil helped her become a French film star, and she was brought to Hollywood in the mid-1930s. Producer Val Lewton was captivated by her performance as the mysterious and cruel Belle in The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941) and he wanted her "kitten face" for his film. Lewton instructed writer DeWitt Bodeen to model the character of Irena on Simon and she accepted the part after reading the treatment (outline of the film). After Cat People and Curse of the Cat People, Simone Simon returned to France near the end of World War II and resumed her career there. She died in 2005 at the age of 94.

Cat People and Curse of the Cat People: Kent Smith (Oliver Reed) was born Frank Kent Smith in New York City in 1907. As a boy, he was an assistant to the famous Blackstone the Magician. He became interested in acting while at Harvard, appeared on Broadway, and went to Hollywood in 1936. He only appeared in two films before Val Lewton saw him riding his bike to work (there was a gas shortage during WWII) and thought that Smith had the clean cut look he needed for Oliver Reed. Cat People propelled Smith's career into the leading man ranks. Shortly after appearing in Curse of the Cat People, Smith joined the US Air Force in 1944. After the war, he continued in film, but worked extensively in television before his death in 1985 at the age of 78.

Cat People and Curse of the Cat People: Jane Randolph (Alice Moore Reed) was born in 1919 in Ohio. She studied with famous acting teacher Max Reinhardt, which led to her being signed to a contract at RKO. She was not the first choice for Alice; Val Lewton wanted an actress named Phyllis Isley. He had suggested that she change her name to Jennifer Jones, which she did, but Jones was now under contract to legendary producer David O. Selznick (who she would later marry) and Selznick wouldn't let her appear in the film because he considered it a "B" picture. Jane Randolph got the role because she had just appeared with Tom Conway in The Falcon's Brother (1942), which influenced Lewton to hire both of them for Cat People. Randolph appeared in only twenty movies, including both Cat People films and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948). The following year, she married Jaime del Amo, a film producer, and retired to Spain, where she became a wealthy socialite. She died in 2009 at the age of 93.

Cat People: Tom Conway (Dr. Louis Judd) was born Thomas Sanders in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1904. His mother was Russian and his father Scottish. Both Tom and his brother, George Sanders, would become famous playing The Falcon in the successful film series. Tom Conway was also known for playing Sherlock Holmes on the radio. An elegant actor with a cultured voice, Conway unfortunately suffered from alcoholism, which damaged his career and eventually killed him at the age of 62 in 1967.

Curse of the Cat People: Ann Carter (Amy Reed) was born in 1936 in Syracuse, New York, and became known for playing Veronica Lake's look-alike daughter in I Married a Witch (1942) when she was only five. At the age of seven, she got the role of Amy in Curse of the Cat People. She only made thirteen films after Curse of the Cat People because she caught polio as a teenager. Although she recovered, her long illness ended her movie career. She married and had three children before her death in January 2014 at the age of 78.

The Legacy

Cat People was released on November 16, 1942, with a wide release at Christmas that year. The critics were mixed, with Variety calling it "weird drama of thrill-chill caliber [...] Script, although hazy for the average audience in several instances, carries sufficient punch in the melodramatic sequences to hold it together in good style." Bosley Crowther of The New York Times dismissed it as "a labored and obvious attempt to induce shock. And Miss Simon's cuddly little tabby would barely frighten a mouse under a chair." Despite the reviews, the film was very popular with wartime audiences and saved RKO Studios from financial ruin due to change in ownership and a run of bad films. Val Lewton's little $150,000 film earned more than $4 million at the American box office and eventually made $8 million worldwide. It put the studio back on solid ground.

Not surprisingly, the studio wanted a sequel, quickly, and Curse of the Cat People was rushed into pre-production after Lewton finished with I Walked with a Zombie (1943). Cat People has become a classic and it was remade in 1982 with Nastassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell and John Heard.

In 1993, the film was inducted into the Library of Congress' National Film Registry as an important cultural historical artifact. In 2012, the gray-green suit that Simone Simon wears in the opening scene was sold for $15,000.

Curse of the Cat People was confusing for the critics. Despite being sold to the public as a sequel to Cat People, it really wasn't. Audiences didn't get the horror film they expected and it did not do as well at the box office. Variety wrote that "[e]ven though having the same principals as in the original chiller, this is an impossible lightweight. Chief trouble seems to be the over-supply of palaver and concern about a cute, but annoying child."