Florelle
This articleneeds additional citations forverification.(January 2022) |
Florelle | |
---|---|
Born | Odette Élisa Joséphine Marguerite Rousseau 9 August 1898 Les Sables-d'Olonne,Vendée,France |
Died | 28 September 1974 La Roche-sur-Yon,Vendée, France | (aged 76)
Occupations |
|
Years active | 1911–1956 |
Spouse |
Marcel Foucret
(m.1934;div.1944) |
Florelle(bornOdette Élisa Joséphine Marguerite Rousseau,9 August 1898 – 28 September 1974) was a Frenchsopranosinger and actress. She gained fame as Polly Peachum in the French filmThe Threepenny Opera,after which she had numerous other film roles. In the 1940s, she retired from the stage, but continued to make film appearances during the war.[1]
Early life
[edit]She was born as Odette Élisa Joséphine Marguerite Rousseau on 9 August 1898 inLes Sables-d'Olonne,Vendée.She came from a wealthy family living in the district of La Chaume, the oldest in the town of Sables-d'Olonne. Her father, an employee of the town hall, left his job to go into business and the family came to live in Paris; her mother worked at the caféLa Cigale.
Career
[edit]Odette began her stage career at the age of 13, singing at theThéâtre de l'Ambigu-Comiqueand theMoulin Rouge.She is notably the partner ofRaimubeginning in a sketch entitled "Le Marseillais et la Parigote". She worked in different establishments, then, in 1914, left for her first tour abroad with the troupe of "L'Européen"; It was then that she adopted the pseudonym of Florelle, named after a singer in the troupe, Jean Flor. The tour was interrupted at the beginning of August inVienna,Austria, by the outbreak ofWorld War I.
After the war, she was noticed byMaurice Chevalier,with whom she participated in three films in the early 1920s. Florelle nevertheless remained attached to the music hall; in 1925, she was chosen as an understudy forMistinguettand as such was the leader of theMoulin-Rougereview "This is Paris" in a tour of South America. Back in Paris, she conducted a second version of "This is Paris" from 1927; in 1928–29, she again toured internationally in Europe; It was then that she was noticed by the Austrian filmmakerGeorg Wilhelm Pabst.
During the 1930s, she devoted herself a lot to the cinema, where her activity was intense from 1930 to 1936; afterL'Opéra de quat'sous,she toured again with Pabst (L'Atlantide), but also withRobert Siodmak(Tumultes),Raymond Bernard(Les Misérables),Fritz Lang(Liliom) andJean Renoir(The Crime of Monsieur Lange). On stage, in 1934 she played the title role of the musicalMarie GalantebyJacques Deval,in which she found the music ofKurt Weill,but which does not meet with success. She records several discs, whether or not related to the films she was filming.
Florelle's career subsequently declined: with her only notable post-war film wasGervaise(1956) byRené Clément.
Death
[edit]She lived for a few years running a café in Sables-d'Olonne. She returned to Paris for a while, then returned to Les Sables, living until her death inLa Roche-sur-Yon,Vendée,at age 76 in a certain oblivion and, it seems, in poverty.
Selected filmography
[edit]References
[edit]- ^O'Connor, Patrick (2001). "Florelle, Odette". InSadie, Stanley;Tyrrell, John(eds.).The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians(2nd ed.). London:Macmillan Publishers.ISBN978-1-56159-239-5.
External links
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