Michèle Morgan

Birthday: 29 February 1920, Neuilly-sur-Seine, Seine [now Hauts-de-Seine], France

Birth Name: Simone Renée Roussel

Height: 163 cm

A classic beauty, blonde French actress Michèle Morgan has been one of her country's most popular leading ladies for over five decades. Born in 1920, she studied acting under René Simon and began her career at 15 working as a film extra to pay for drama classes. The young actress soon caught the eye of director Marc Allégret, who cast her in Gribouille (1937), which clinched her stardom. Her remote, enigmatic features and gloomy allure had audiences comparing her to a young Greta Garbo. Her eventual move to Hollywood was based purely on her European prestige, but she did not stand out among the other female foreign imports of that time, such as Ingrid Bergman. Cast in rather routine sultry roles amid WWII surroundings, she returned to her homeland after a so-so reception for such US-based films as Joan of Paris (1942) with Paul Henreid, Passage to Marseille (1944) opposite Humphrey Bogart and the noirish The Chase (1946) starring Robert Cummings. Michele was treated much better at home and received the Cannes Film Festival award for best actress for her touching performance as the blind heroine in La symphonie pastorale (1946). She married and divorced American actor/singer William Marshall during the 40s. Her second husband was Gallic star Henri Vidal who died suddenly in 1959. They appeared together in a couple of films, including Napoléon (1955). Show less «

[on Passage to Marseille (1944)] It was a wartime melodrama full of propaganda, although Hollywood a...Show more »

[on Passage to Marseille (1944)] It was a wartime melodrama full of propaganda, although Hollywood at that time couldn't have been more remote from the war. I didn't enjoy doing the film. At the time I was single, bored and unhappy with Hollywood. It seemed very unreal to me then. Show less «

I have never had the opportunity to play sexy women. I must believe that my charm was not in my ass.

[on her Hollywood period] Why look back? I was so young then, so miserable with my poor attempts at ...Show more »

[on her Hollywood period] Why look back? I was so young then, so miserable with my poor attempts at English. I used to say 'crying trees' for weeping willows. You didn't mow the lawn. No, you shaved it. And those pictures. Those stinkers. Show less «

A woman can always deceive a hundred men, but not a single woman.

[observation, 1942] If I had or if I do have some success, it's not I at all but fate. I am just a p...Show more »

[observation, 1942] If I had or if I do have some success, it's not I at all but fate. I am just a poor little balloon transported along by circumstances or people. Show less «

[on working with Jean Gabin in Le quai des brumes (1938)] There was a scene in which I was in the be...Show more »

[on working with Jean Gabin in Le quai des brumes (1938)] There was a scene in which I was in the bed, in the bedroom, and Gabin was not in the bed. He was sitting on the bed. Oh, it was very, very modest, it was not something very daring when you compare that sort of thing with what they do now. In fact, that scene was more exciting than what they do now, I suppose, because mystery is a great part in a love scene. Show less «

Michèle Morgan

Michèle Morgan's FILMOGRAPHY

Michèle Morgan'S roles

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