| Corinne Luchaire | |
|---|---|
| Born | Rosita Christiane Yvette Luchaire 11 February 1921 Paris, France |
| Died | 22 January 1950 (aged 28) Paris, France |
| Years active | 1935–1940[1] |
| Spouse | Guy de Voisins-Lavernière |
Corinne Luchaire (11 February 1921 – 22 January 1950) was a French film actress who was a star of French cinema on the eve of Second World War.[2] Her association with the German occupation led her to be sentenced to "national indignity" after the war, and after writing an autobiography she died from tuberculosis aged only 28.
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Luchaire left school to join the drama class of Raymond Rouleau.[1] Luchaire made her acting debut under the name Rose Davel at the age of 16 in a play written by her grandfather, Altitude 3 200.[1][3] She starred aged 17 in Prison sans barreaux, which in 1938 was remade in English in London as Prison Without Bars, with her again in the lead role. She spoke English fluently.[4] Mary Pickford called her "the new Garbo."[1] She starred in 1939 in Le Dernier Tournant (The Last Bend), the first version of the novel The Postman Always Rings Twice.[5]
Born Rosita Christiane Yvette Luchaire in Paris, she was the daughter of journalist and politician Jean Luchaire, who supported the Vichy regime's Révolution nationale.[3] Her paternal grandfather Julien Luchaire was a playwright and her maternal grandfather Armand Besnard was a painter.[3][4] Her sister Florence was also an actress. Her mother, also a painter,[4] became Gustav Stresemann's mistress, and they moved to Germany with Corinne. Corinne charmed Stresemann's friend Kurt Freiherr von Schröder, who let her live in his mansion. Corinne grew up around the Nazis who frequented the banker Schröder at his home. There, she met German ambassador Otto Abetz, who married her father's secretary. Until 1939 she was his mistress.[6][7] She accompanied her father to Vichy Paris in August 1940.[8] She was briefly married to a French aristocrat, Guy de Voisins-Lavernière, who served as a Luftwaffe captain. They had one daughter, Brigitte, but divorced.[3] She had a brief relationship with Charles Trenet.[1] She became a well-known, piquant French actress, and she benefited during the Occupation from the political and social position of her father, the editor of Le Matin, Les Temps Nouveaux, and Toute la vie.[7][9] She was frequently ill, and stopped acting in 1940.[10]
After World War II, Corinne attempted suicide then escaped to Sigmaringen, Germany and Merano, Italy, but she and her father were arrested in May 1945 and imprisoned at Fresnes. She spent several months in jail in Nice, and was sentenced to ten years of dégradation nationale in June 1946. Her father, condemned to death for treason, was shot in February 1946.[3][7] [11][12] In 1949, Luchaire published her autobiography, entitled Ma drôle de vie (My funny life), about her stardom under the German occupation. The book was criticised as naive and failing to analyse her role in the Nazi occupation.[9] She died of tuberculosis on 22 January 1950 at the Clinique Médicale Edouard Rist in Paris. She is buried at the Cimetière de Bagneux dans les Hauts-de-Seine.[13]