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The French actress Simone Simon (1910-2005) is now remembered chiefly by U.S. audiences for her performances in producer Val Lewton's Cat People movies for RKO, although she had a long and consistently busy (if erratic) career in French and American films. On the occasion of her passing, French Minister of Culture Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres issued a statement praising her "charm, her irresistible smile... With Simone Simon's passing, we have lost one of the most seductive and most brilliant stars of the French cinema of the first half of the 20th century."

She was born Simone Thérèse Fernande Simone in Béthune, Pas-de-Calais, the daughter of a French engineer and an Italian housewife. After the divorce of her parents and the remarriage of her mother, she moved about frequently, living in Madagascar, Budapest, Turin and Berlin before settling in Marseilles. At various times she toyed with ideas of becoming a singer, model, fashion designer or sculptress. Her dark-haired, kittenish beauty caught the attention of director Viktor Tourjansky, who offered her a screen contract and cast her in Le chanteur inconnu (The Unknown Singer, 1931). She soon gained major attention as the star of Lac aux dames (Ladies Lake, 1934), directed by Marc Allégret. She considered Allégret to be her mentor, and often gave him credit for her success. She appeared in two more of his films, Les yeux noirs (Black Eyes) and Les beaux jours, both released in 1935.

Now a prominent presence in French cinema, Simon was brought to Hollywood by 20th Century Fox studio head Darryl F. Zanuck in 1935. Two proposed films that were eventually released in 1936, A Message to Garcia and Under Two Flags, failed to work out for her, due to poor health and/or overheated temperament, and she was replaced in both. She finally had an American success with a vibrant performance in Girls' Dormitory (1936) as a twentyish student in a private school who falls for her headmaster (Herbert Marshall). After that, although given a major publicity buildup by Fox as "Europe's Sweetheart," with the helpful information that her name in English would be pronounced "See-moan See-moan," her career languished.

After more false starts, she appeared in the romantic comedy Ladies in Love (1936) where she was mostly overshadowed by formidable costars Janet Gaynor, Loretta Young and Constance Bennett. Her other Fox films included a remake of Seventh Heaven (1937) that failed at the box office despite the presence of James Stewart; and a couple of "B" comedies-with-music promoted by a publicity gimmick, "Simone Simon Sings Sings!" But Simon, who struggled with English, didn't "sing sing" particularly well, and Love and Hisses (1937) and Josette (1938) also were deemed flops.

Unhappy with her progress in the U.S., Simon returned to France for a pair of prestigious projects: Jean Renoir's film version of the Emile Zola novel La Bête Humaine (1938); and Cavalcade d'amour (1940), a historical romance with a screenplay by Jean Anouilh. Renoir himself described her performance in his film as "unforgettable."

With the onset of World War II Simon returned to Hollywood and gave the most famous performances of her career. She appears to vivid effect in The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941) as Belle, the demonic temptress who serves as a handmaiden of the Devil as played by Walter Huston. Then came Cat People (1942), in which Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur turned a low budget to their advantage, creating one of the most atmospheric horror films ever made through evocative camerawork and Simon's mysterious presence as a woman possessed by predatory feline instincts. A sequel from the same creative team, The Curse of the Cat People (1944), takes a different tack as fantasy told from a child's point of view, with Simon playing the ghost of her original character and becoming the guiding spirit of a lonely little girl.

Simon's successes once again failed to lead to a major American film career, although she did appear in two more effective vehicles released in 1944. Johnny Doesn't Live Here Anymore is a screwball comedy in which she plays a French-Canadian beauty coping with the WWII housing shortage in Washington, D.C., with Robert Mitchum among the cast. Mademoiselle Fifi (1944) is a period costume drama, produced by Lewton and based on stories by Guy de Maupassant, that marked the solo directorial debut of Robert Wise. It is dominated by Simon's piquant portrayal of a village laundress who uses her sexual charms to bring down a brutal Prussian officer (Kurt Kreuger) during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870.

In the late 1940s Simon permanently returned to France, where her most noted later work was in a pair of exquisite films for director Max Ophuls. In La Ronde, a roundelay of sexual liaisons that was quite spicy for its day, she plays a seductive maid. In Le Plaisir (House of Pleasure, 1952), based on a de Maupassant story, she is a model taking revenge on the artist/lover (Daniel Gelin) who has abandoned her. After a lengthy absence from the screen, during which she did some stage work, Simon returned -- still beautiful -- for a final, small role in La Femme en Bleu (The Woman in Blue, 1973).

Although Simon never married, she was linked with many suitors including composer George Gershwin.

by Roger Fristoe