Sunday, May 15, 2016

Bogey’s “Girlfriend” Bids Adieu

This is fairly remarkable news, from The Washington Post:
Madeleine LeBeau, a French actress who fled Nazi-occupied Europe for Hollywood, where she made the best of a small role as the scorned girlfriend of Humphrey Bogart’s Rick Blaine in Casablanca, died May 1 in Estepona, Spain. She was widely reported to be 92. …

LeBeau (sometimes credited as Lebeau) was the last surviving credited cast member of
Casablanca (1942), which the American Film Institute lists—after Citizen Kane—as the second greatest movie of all time.
The story goes on to quote LeBeau as saying that “she hoped Casablanca would catapult her to great demand in Hollywood. It did not. She told Charlotte Chandler, [an Ingrid] Bergman biographer, ‘It wasn't that I was cut out, it was because they kept changing the script and, each time they changed it, I had less of a part. It wasn't personal, but I was so disappointed.’”

Click here to see a good photo of the young LeBeau, plus the famous “La Marseillaise” scene from Casablanca in which she features.

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