Elvire Popesco(1894-1993)
- Actress
From 1923 when she played the lead in
Louis Verneuil's "Ma cousine de
Varsovie" to 1978 when she played again (and for the last time) "La
Mamma", written specially for her by
André Roussin, Elvire Popesco (born near
Bucharest in 1894) was the undisputed queen of "Théâtre de Boulevard"
(light comedies). For 55 years in a row, la Popesco was that ebullient
and charming thick-accented foreigner who graced with her cheerful
energy dozens of plays by such witty playwrights such as
Louis Verneuil,
Jacques Deval,
Sacha Guitry,
Henri Bernstein,
André Roussin,
Marcel Achard and many others. She
seldom ventured into "serious" territory but
Jean Cocteau's "La machine infernale" and
Frédéric Dard's "La dame de Chicago" are
exceptions that help to back up
Tristan Bernard's own definition
of her personality: "Elvire Popesco is a glass of champagne with tears
at the bottom". On the big screen she played the same type of
characters as on stage, Burel's incendiary cousin in
Carmine Gallone's
Ma cousine de Varsovie (1931),
the filmed adaptation of her first triumph in Paris; the fiery duchess
of Maulévrier in Roger Richebé's hilarious
L'habit vert (1937); the boisterous
actress Verotchka in Fernand Rivers's
La présidente (1938); the
cosmopolitan adventuress in
Le club des aristocrates (1937)...
Even when she appeared in a famous thriller like
René Clément's
Purple Noon (1960), she was her
usual eccentric foreigner self. Though when she was still a young
Romananian thespian her dream was to become a great tragedian, she soon
realized that if she wanted to succeed in France her accent was a
terrible handicap. She made people laugh and she proved wise enough to
accept it for a fact. She was wonderful as a result instead of...
ridiculous.
