Françoise Rosay

Acting

Françoise Rosay

Born 1891-04-17 · Paris, France

Françoise Rosay born Françoise Bandy de Nalèche, (19 April 1891 – 28 March 1974) was a French opera singer, diseuse, and actress who enjoyed a film career of over sixty years and who became a legendary figure in French cinema. She went on to appear in over 100 movies in her career. Rosay was born Françoise Bandy de Nalèche in Paris, the illegitimate daughter of Marie-Thérèse Chauvin, an actress known as Sylviac. She originally planned to become an opera singer, and in 1917, won a prize at the Paris Conservatoire and made her debut at the Palais Garnier in the title role of Salammbô by Ernest Reyer. She also sang in Castor et Pollux by Rameau and Thaïs by Massenet. Her first recorded film was Falstaff in 1911, and she began to work in Hollywood from 1929 onwards. In 1917, she married the director Jacques Feyder, with whom she remained until his death in 1948, having three sons. She appeared in several films under her husband's direction, including Le Grand Jeu (1933), Pension Mimosas (1934), La Kermesse héroïque (Carnival in Flanders) (1935) and Les Gens du voyage (1937). Rosay spent the duration of World War II in England and Switzerland, where she taught acting classes at the Conservatoire de Genève. She still appeared in films during this time, notably the British Halfway House (1944) as the refugee French wife of a British sea captain. During her career, she appeared with all the great stars of French cinema, including Jean Gabin, Michèle Morgan, Raimu, Jeanne Moreau, Danielle Darrieux, Micheline Presle, Paul Meurisse, Gérard Philipe, Louis Jouvet, Michel Simon, Simone Signoret, Fernandel and Jean-Louis Barrault. In Hollywood, she co-starred with Charles Boyer, Maurice Chevalier and Buster Keaton and worked with directors such as William Dieterle (September Affair, 1949), Martin Ritt (The Sound and the Fury, 1958), Ronald Neame (The Seventh Sin, 1956) and Peter Glenville (Me and the Colonel, 1957) with Danny Kaye. In England she appeared in The Alien Corn, a segment of the W. Somerset Maugham anthology film Quartet. A highly accomplished pianist herself in real life, she played the role of a famous piano virtuoso who gives aspiring pianist Dirk Bogarde a compassionate but honest and devastating critical appraisal of his likelihood of becoming a great musician – which results in his suicide. She performs in the film Schubert's Impromptu in E flat. In 1950 she appeared on stage at London's Winter Garden Theatre, playing the title role in 'Madame Tic Tac' but it had only a short run. It was not until 1938 that her biological father, Count François Louis Bandy de Nalèche, acknowledged her as his daughter. Her final appearance on film was in the Maximilian Schell-directed Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winner for Best Foreign-Language Foreign Film of 1974, Der Fußgänger (English title: The Pedestrian). She died in Montgeron, Île-de-France, near Paris. Her grave is located in Sorel-Moussel, Île-de-France, where she is buried with her husband, movie director Jacques Feyder. They had three sons. There are streets named after Françoise Rosay in Limoges, Montpellier, Chevry-Cossigny, Launaguet and Martigues. Source: Article "Françoise Rosay" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.

Acting credits

The Robber Symphony poster
6.4

A bag of loot is stashed in a piano that belongs to a family of traveling entertainers. A gang of robbers tries to get the loot back, and though they kddnap two members of the troop, the third, a young boy, has run off with the piano.

The Robber Symphony

1937

They Were Twelve Women poster
5.9

Early in the war, a group of women decide to help the soldiers in the war front. They enlist the help of the wealthy Madame Marion.

They Were Twelve Women

1940

Ruy Blas poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Ruy Blas

1965

Ramuntcho poster
9.0

Ramuntcho is a young man who has fallen in with a gang of smugglers, led by Itchoua, who carry their contraband across the border into Spain. He is in love with Gracieuse whose mother, Dolorès, bitterly dislikes Ramuntcho because he was born an illegitimate child. His smuggling activities force him to join the army and he is sent to Saigon and, because of her mother's desire to marry her off to someone else, Gracieuse joins a convent.

Ramuntcho

1938

Marchand d'amour poster
8.0

A genius director whose daring and sensual films have earned him the nickname "The Merchant of Love", claims to escape commercial contingencies and direct the film of his life on his own. It is a resounding failure that leads him to the forfeiture from which the fate of a woman's love.

Marchand d'amour

1935

The Counterfeiters of Paris poster
7.0

"Le Dabe" retired many years ago and now he lives in the Tropics where he owns stables and horses. He is a very rich man. He was the king of all money counterfeiters. He is contacted from Paris to organize a new job. He says no. But when he finds out the the currency that should be counterfeited is the Dutch florin, he accepts immediately. He retired after having counterfeited 100 florin notes just before the Queen Wilhelmina retired them from circulation. He flies to Paris. But the gang is not to be trusted, at least not all of them.

The Counterfeiters of Paris

1961

The 25th Hour poster
7.6

A Romanian peasant fights to get back to his family after he's imprisoned by the Nazis.The picture is based on real events. It includes Hungary's government in collaboration with the Nazis, the encroachment of Romania by Stalin's troopers, and other happenings.

The 25th Hour

1967

Crainquebille poster
7.4

Jérôme Crainquebille, is an ageing vegetable seller who has sold groceries from his cart in in Paris for over 40 years. One day, he is harassed by a policeman who insists that he moves on. When he protests, Crainquebille is arrested, supposedly for swearing at the policeman.

Crainquebille

1922

The Stream poster
6.8

When Paul, an officer, discovers Denise, a young orphan escaped from her orphanage, he takes advantage of his naivete to seduce her before changing her mind and sending her to live with her mother while sailing.

The Stream

1938

The Seventh Sin poster
5.4

In post-WWII Hong Kong, unhappily married Carol has an affair with a married man. Her husband discovers it and presents her with a choice: travel with him to a remote mainland village or face the scandal of a very public divorce.

The Seventh Sin

1957

The Sound and the Fury poster
6.8

The once-prominent Compson family of Jefferson, Miss., has been reduced to near-penury by generations of alcoholism and sin. Levelheaded Jason struggles to keep the family together, but his teenage stepsister, Quentin, chafes against his strictures. When Quentin's estranged mother reappears in town, and carnival worker Charles attempts to seduce the virginal teen, the family may finally be headed for complete collapse.

The Sound and the Fury

1959

No artwork available
7.0

A beautiful widow gambles away her fortune at baccarat and is forced her to sell her jewels and ask Victor for hospitality. Victor tries to seduce her but she loves the shy Gaston.

Luck

1931

Madame Récamier poster
7.0

The film displays Madame Récamier 's conflict with Napoleon. Twice she was pressed to become one of the Empress's ladies. In revenge for her refusal Napoleon declined to save her husband from ruin.

Madame Récamier

1928

Un merveilleux parfum d'oseille poster
6.0

Baron Yves de Kerfunte learns of his uncle's death. Overjoyed, he is astonished to discover that seven other individuals are vying for the inheritance. Worse still, when they open the will, they learn that only the elderly Louise de Kerfunte is the heiress, and that she intends to squander the money quickly.

Un merveilleux parfum d'oseille

1969

Saraband for Dead Lovers poster
6.6

Sophie Dorothea is a young woman forced into a loveless marriage with Prince George Louis of Hanover. George Louis is later crowned King George I of England. Despairing of ever experiencing true love, the depressed queen finds life at court no solace. Sophie then falls for a dashing Swedish soldier of fortune, Count Konigsmark.

Saraband for Dead Lovers

1948

Queen Margot poster
7.1

Marguerite de Valois, daughter of Catherine de Médicis, celebrates her wedding with Henri de Navarre. Officially, it's a rapprochement between the League and the Huguenots. In fact, it was an opportunity to bring all the Huguenots to Paris and kill them all at once. King Charles IX fails in his attempt on Coligny's life. Queen Margot tries to save her husband from the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre by preventing the annulment of his marriage, forcing Henri to share her bed. Two knights from opposing camps are wounded and, saved în extremis, are hidden together by the queen and her cousin. Margot falls in love with one of them, but has to run to warn her husband of a new attack...

Queen Margot

1954

No artwork available
10.0

Marthe, a robust peasant, is a single mother. For her child to be happy, she abandons him to the Duchemin household, eager for an impossible motherhood. Later, the young man is still unaware of the obscure sacrifice of his real mother.

Maternité

1935

That Lady poster
6.6

In 1570, widowed Princess Ana de Mendoza becomes the love object of a deadly rivalry between her cousin Don Inigo, King Philip II of Spain and his secretary of state Antonio Perez.

That Lady

1955

The Full Treatment poster
6.2

Race car driver Alan Colby and his new wife Denise are involved in a car crash where he sustains a serious head injury, causing him to have murderous feelings toward Denise. After Denise persuades him to honeymoon with her on the Cote D'Azur in France, they enlist the aid of a French psychiatrist who offers to regress Alan back to the time of the accident and cure him.

The Full Treatment

1960

La Pouponnière poster
9.0

Christianne Delannoy is the daughter of Mr. Brown, who subsidizes a nursery in memory of his affair with Mrs. Delannoy. She loves Doctor Moreau, but her mother forces her to marry a rich young man.

La Pouponnière

1933

The Red Inn poster
6.8

A group of travelers, including a monk, stay in a lonely inn in the mountains. The host confesses the monk his habit of serving poisoned soup to the guests, to rob their possessions and to bury them in the backyard.

The Red Inn

1951

Peace on the Rhine poster
8.5

During the lead up to a second World War, one of several French films hoping for peace,specifically between Germany and France as shown by a border family in Alsace trying to resolve their differences.

Peace on the Rhine

1938

Cloportes poster
6.3

Three little criminals get a tip for a great coup with lots of money in it. Unfortunately they lack the starting funds to buy the required welding torch. So they persuade their successful colleague Alphonse to join their team. But the well thought-out coup fails, and Alphonse is the only one of them who ends up in jail for several years. When he's released, he's out for revenge.

Cloportes

1965

The Gambler poster
6.7

In 1866, a young Muscovite named Alexei Ivanovitch arrives in Baden Baden, then the gambling capital of Austria, and is soon engaged by General Zagorianski to look after his children. Alexei discovers that his employer is a compulsive gambler who has been almost ruined by his addiction. The only money the General has is provided by the Marquis de Grieux, an adventurer who intends to marry Zagorianski’s sister, Pauline. In doing so, de Grieux hopes to profit from the vast inheritance that will come the General’s way from his Aunt Antonina, who is presently very ill. Alexei is appalled by this society which lives only for money. He loves Pauline and wants to take her to a healthier place, but when she refuses to marry him, he begins to gamble at the casino…

The Gambler

1958

Behind the camera