Françoise Rosay
Françoise Rosay born Françoise Bandy de Nalèche, (19 April 1891 – 28 March 1974) was a French opera singer, diseuse, and actress who enjoyed a film career of over sixty years and who became a legendary figure in French cinema. She went on to appear in over 100 movies in her career.
Rosay was born Françoise Bandy de Nalèche in Paris, the illegitimate daughter of Marie-Thérèse Chauvin, an actress known as Sylviac. She originally planned to become an opera singer, and in 1917, won a prize at the Paris Conservatoire and made her debut at the Palais Garnier in the title role of Salammbô by Ernest Reyer. She also sang in Castor et Pollux by Rameau and Thaïs by Massenet.
Her first recorded film was Falstaff in 1911, and she began to work in Hollywood from 1929 onwards. In 1917, she married the director Jacques Feyder, with whom she remained until his death in 1948, having three sons. She appeared in several films under her husband's direction, including Le Grand Jeu (1933), Pension Mimosas (1934), La Kermesse héroïque (Carnival in Flanders) (1935) and Les Gens du voyage (1937). Rosay spent the duration of World War II in England and Switzerland, where she taught acting classes at the Conservatoire de Genève. She still appeared in films during this time, notably the British Halfway House (1944) as the refugee French wife of a British sea captain.
During her career, she appeared with all the great stars of French cinema, including Jean Gabin, Michèle Morgan, Raimu, Jeanne Moreau, Danielle Darrieux, Micheline Presle, Paul Meurisse, Gérard Philipe, Louis Jouvet, Michel Simon, Simone Signoret, Fernandel and Jean-Louis Barrault. In Hollywood, she co-starred with Charles Boyer, Maurice Chevalier and Buster Keaton and worked with directors such as William Dieterle (September Affair, 1949), Martin Ritt (The Sound and the Fury, 1958), Ronald Neame (The Seventh Sin, 1956) and Peter Glenville (Me and the Colonel, 1957) with Danny Kaye. In England she appeared in The Alien Corn, a segment of the W. Somerset Maugham anthology film Quartet. A highly accomplished pianist herself in real life, she played the role of a famous piano virtuoso who gives aspiring pianist Dirk Bogarde a compassionate but honest and devastating critical appraisal of his likelihood of becoming a great musician – which results in his suicide. She performs in the film Schubert's Impromptu in E flat.
In 1950 she appeared on stage at London's Winter Garden Theatre, playing the title role in 'Madame Tic Tac' but it had only a short run.
It was not until 1938 that her biological father, Count François Louis Bandy de Nalèche, acknowledged her as his daughter.
Her final appearance on film was in the Maximilian Schell-directed Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winner for Best Foreign-Language Foreign Film of 1974, Der Fußgänger (English title: The Pedestrian).
She died in Montgeron, Île-de-France, near Paris. Her grave is located in Sorel-Moussel, Île-de-France, where she is buried with her husband, movie director Jacques Feyder. They had three sons.
There are streets named after Françoise Rosay in Limoges, Montpellier, Chevry-Cossigny, Launaguet and Martigues.
Source: Article "Françoise Rosay" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
Known for
Midi trente
Self
Tambour battant
The Princess Mother
Jenny
Jenny Gauthier
The One Woman Idea
Zuleide, Alizar's Mother
Fahrendes Volk
Madame Flora
Abbot Constantine
La comtesse de Laverdens
Marie des angoisses
Mme de Quersac
The Naked Heart
Laura Chapdelaine
Carnival in Flanders
Cornelia
Quartet
Lea Makart (segment "The Alien Corn")
The Halfway House
Alice Meadows
Wanda the Sinner
Anna Steiner
Life Dances On
Marguerite Audié
Pension Mimosas
Louise Noblet
The Seven Deadly Sins
Elisabeth de Pallières, the mother (segment "L'Orgueil")
The Pedestrian
Frau Dechamps
Peace on the Rhine
Francoise Scheffer
One Only Loves Once
Mme Monnier
Back Streets of Paris
Mrs. Rose, hotel landlady
That Lady
Bernardine
Smuggler's Ball
Gabrielle Demeuse
L'Âge heureux
Mme Aubry
Nobody's Children
La contessa Canali
Coralie and Company
The Barton Mystery
Élisabeth
Marius à Paris
The Magnificent Lie
Rosa Duchêne
Jenny Lind
Rosatti
Die Insel
Silvia
The 25th Hour
Mme Nagy (uncredited)
The Red Inn
Marie Martin
Portrait of a Woman
Fanny Helder
Saraband for Dead Lovers
The Electress Sophia
Interlude
Comtesse Reinhart
Two Timid Souls
The aunt
Me and the Colonel
Madame Bouffier
The Trial of Mary Dugan
The widow
Sul ponte dei sospiri
Lady of Sant'Agata
The Seventh Sin
Mother Superior
September Affair
Maria Salvatini
The 13th Letter
Mrs. Gauthier
The Sound and the Fury
Caroline Compson
Ruy Blas
La duchesse d'Albuquerque
The Counterfeiters of Paris
Madame Pauline
Queen Margot
Catherine de Médicis / Catharine of Medici
Don't Take God's Children for Wild Geese
Léontine Palpicart aka 'La Gâteuse'
Vers l'abîme
Sylvia
Cloportes
Gertrude, supplies specialist in the mafia
He Who Is Without Sin...
La contessa Lamieri
Eyes of Love
Mrs. Montcatel mother
Whirlpool
Madame Gardane
The Full Treatment
Madame Prade
The Gambler
Aunt Antonia
Aujourd'hui Madame
Self - Guest
Serge Panine
Madame Devarenne
K – Das Haus des Schweigens
Noemi, die Amme
Maternité
Mrs. Duchemin
The Stream
Régina Berry
Not Dumb, the Bird
Mrs. Morelli-Johnson
Gribiche
Edith Maranet
Full Hearts and Empty Pockets
Borgia
Women Without Names
The Countess
Bizarre, Bizarre
Margaret Molyneux
The Dream Vagabonds
Mireille Dombreval
Ramuntcho
Dolorès Detcharry
Carnival in Flanders
Madame Burgomaster
La Dame de Haut-le-Bois
Countess Brévannes
Girls of Today
padrona della pensione
The Little Cafe
Mademoiselle Edwige
Non sono più guaglione
Vincenzino's mother
La Pouponnière
Mrs. Delannoy
Madame Récamier
Madame de Staël
Crainquebille
Shoe Store Customer
Up from the Beach
Lili's Grandmother
Let Us Be Gay
Madame Boucijon
People Who Travel
Flora
Armchair 47
Gilberte Boulanger
Johnny Frenchman
Lanec Florrie
3000 Million Without an Elevator
Madame Dubreuil
Gangster malgré lui
Si l'empereur savait ça
Princess Plata d'Ettingen
Luck
Mme Mougeot
Stefanie in Rio
Leonora Guala
Le Billet de mille
Russian Countess
Without Trumpet or Drum
La grand-mère de Marguerite
The Chess Player
Catherine II
Un merveilleux parfum d'oseille
Louise de Kerfuntel
Lovers Woods
Madame Parisot
The Great Game
Blanche
A Father Without Knowing It
Madame Jacquet
Frau Cheneys Ende
Mrs. Webley
Échec au roi
The Queen
He
Madame Husson
Riff Raff Girls
Berthe
Le bateau de verre
Madame d'Arcy, his wife
They Were Twelve Women
La duchesse de Vimeuse
Marchand d'amour
Clara
The Woman Dressed As a Man
Princess Marie
My Son the Minister
Sylvie - seine Mutter
All for Nothing
Mrs. Bossu
Twentieth Century Theatre: Colombe
Madame Alexandra
The Robber Symphony
The fortune teller
Casanova wider Willen
Blanche Brissac
Les éloquents
Self
The Secret of Polichinelle
Mrs. Jouvenel