Acting
Apr 13, 1895
Leningrad, USSR [now St. Petersburg, Russia]
Mary Marquet
Acting
Biography
Mary Marquet (born Micheline Marguerite Delphine Marquet; 14 April 1895 – 29 August 1979) was a French stage and film actress. Marquet came from a family of artists: her parents were actors, an aunt was a star dancer at the Paris Opera, and another was an official at the Comédie-Française. She entered the National Superior Conservatory of Dramatic Art in 1913 and studied under Paul Mounet. She failed her final exams, but was immediately engaged in the company of Sarah Bernhardt, who was a great friend of the family. She went on play alongside her in The Eugene Morand cathedral. She became established with her role in L'Aiglon by Edmond Rostand, whose mistress she became from 1915 to his death in 1918. She made her film debut in 1914 in a silent film, Les Frères ennemis, which was never finished. Her first major film role was in Sappho, produced by Léonce Perret in 1932. After World War I, she joined the Comédie-Française in 1923 where she stayed for over twenty years, before moving to the boulevard Theatre. During the World War II, throughout the occupation, she sought the protection of German officers to protect her son who had told her of his intention to join the Resistance. The response was his arrest and deportation to Buchenwald concentration camp where he died aged 21. This was possibly the cause of her problems at the time of the Liberation when, due to her alleged relations with the enemy, Marquet was arrested and sent to Drancy and then to Fresnes. She was later released for lack of evidence. In the 1950s, she turned to poetry recital, while continuing her career in theater on the boulevards. She worked for ORTF in the Maigret episodes of Les Cinq Dernières Minutes and Les Saintes Chéries and in the television adaptation of Lucien Leuwen, the novel by Stendhal. Parallel to her acting career, as an antiquarian she ran a stand for many years at the Swiss Village, an important antique market in Paris where she demonstrated her skills as a saleswoman, mixing theatrical memorabilia with commercial interests. Among her most successful parts in over forty films, were her roles in, Landru in 1962, Claude Chabrol, La Grande Vadrouille in 1966 by Gérard Oury, and Casanova in 1975 by Federico Fellini. After these three minor parts she played important roles in La vie de château (1966) the mother of Philippe Noiret and the stepmother of Catherine Deneuve and the Le malin plaisir (1975) with Claude Jade and Anny Duperey. Mary Marquet and Victor Francen on their wedding day in 1934. Her first lover was Edmond Rostand around 1915, living together for three years. In 1920 she married Maurice Escande, the future director of the house of Molière, ending in divorce in 1921, before meeting Firmin Gémier, the director of the new Théâtre National Populaire, who was still married but whose wife was barren. In 1922, Marquet gave birth to their son. Before the death of Gémier in 1933, Marquet became the mistress of the president of the then Council, André Tardieu, in a semi-official liaison. Having broken up with Tardieu, she married Victor Francen. The couple separated after seven years together. Marquet died of heart attack at the age of 84 in her apartment in the Rue Carpeaux, She is buried in Montmartre Cemetery. Source: Article "Mary Marquet" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Feature Films (39)
All the inhabitants of an old house are swindlers, dreaming only of the big score that will enable them to survive an announced eviction. They end up pulling it off together, by building a fake tollgate.
Par ici la monnaie
Philippe Malaiseau, writer and historian, died before completing his study of Charles le Témeraire, so the publisher sent Marc Lancelot, Malaiseau's “negro”, to Fontbonne in the Midi. There are five women in Fontbonne: Julie, a ravishing and very particular secretary who seduces Marc, Malaiseau's old mother, Marianne, the distant widow, Christine, the cousin, and Melisa, an Italian friend. The four women are all related to Malaiseau. Did he die in a simple accident?
Evil Pleasure
In the countryside near Normandy's beaches lives Marie, unhappy. It's 1945, she's married to Jérôme, a somewhat fussy milquetoast, diffident to the war around him and unwilling to move his wife to Paris, where she longs to live, shop, and party. A German outfit is bivouacked at Jérôme and Marie's crumbling château because its commanding officer is pursuing Marie. She's also eyed by a French spy working with the Allies as they plan D-Day. He woos her (posing to the Germans as her brother) and, in his passion, forgets his mission. Heroics come from an unexpected direction, and Marie makes her choice.
A Matter of Resistance
Paris, France, during the First World War. While thousands of soldiers die every day on the battlefields, Henri Landru, a seemingly respectable furniture dealer, married and father of four children, relentlessly feeds his own sinister factory of death.
Bluebeard
Tulipe, is an old man who lives alone in an old railway carriage in the Argentueil region of Paris. His main passions are gardening and oil painting, but he also has a secret source of income. His godson discovers that Tulipe is actually a master forger, producing perfect copies of 10 franc notes. His godson’s girlfriend sees this as an opportunity to get very rich – but she must persuade Tulipe to forge 500 franc notes. Assuming Tulipe’s agreement, his godson and his girlfriend buy an expensive new car and luxury villa in provincial France – but there is a cruel turn of fate in store for them when Tulipe strikes up a friendship with a millionaire playboy.
The Gardener of Argenteuil
Television & Series (8)
L’Agence O is a famous Parisian private detective firm. Its premises are located in the Passage Choiseul. In front, Torrence leads the shop. In fact, the agency's team is complemented by Émilie le Roux, Mademoiselle Berthe and Barbet, who scrutinize clients through a one-way mirror located behind the desk. Getting hold of a man disguised as an old lady, solving the mystery of the Prisoner of Lagny or discovering who is blackmailing the painter Tigrane Alban does not worry the experts at the O Agency. Les Dossiers de l’Agence O is a French-Canadian television series in thirteen episodes of approximately 55 minutes created by Marc Simenon and broadcast first in Quebec from December 14, 1967 to March 13, 1968 on Télévision de Radio-Canada, then in France from March 11 to June 3, 1968 on the first channel of the ORTF.
