Micheline Presle, actress known for ‘Devil in the Flesh’, dies at the age of 101

Micheline Presle, a subtle and elegant actress who was a last link in the first golden age of French cinema, died on February 21 in Nogent-sur-Marne, a suburb of Paris. She was 101.

Her death at the Maison des Artistes, a retirement home for artists, partly financed by the government, was confirmed by her son-in-law, Olivier Bomsel.

Ms. Presle (pronounced prell) was the last survivor of a trio of actresses — Danièlle Darrieux and Michèle Morgan were the other two — who were already stars in France at the outbreak of World War II and who defined a certain style of French femininity. , both at home and abroad. Ms. Presle’s subtle facial expressions evoked a wide range of human emotions, especially in two films that, with critical approval, she never surpassed: “Le Diable au Corps” or “Devil in the Flesh” (1947), and “Boule de Suif” (1945).

Both films were based on masterpieces of French literature: the first was an adaptation of a novel by the brilliant but short-lived author Raymond Radiguet; the second of two short stories by Guy de Maupassant. These subtle and complex stories took advantage of Ms. Presle’s versatility.

“Le Diable au Corps” depicted the passionate affair between a young woman, played by Mrs. Presle, whose husband fought in the trenches in World War I, and a teenage schoolboy, played by the very young Gérard Philipe, who spent his life in trenches moisture. short career was both France’s leading heartthrob and greatest actor.

The film caused a scandal in France and elsewhere – at the 1947 Brussels Film Festival, the French ambassador left the cinema in protest – and was banned by British censors for six years before being released there with an X rating.

Yet it was “the most important work of her career,” Le Figaro film critic Bertrand Guyard said after her death, and it was all the more remarkable that Ms. Presle was only 25.

When the film was released in the United States in 1949 as “Devil in the Flesh,” Bosley Crowther of The New York Times, after praising Mr. Philipe, called Ms. Presle “also a beautiful and sensitive artist — a youthful, full-bodied woman. small creature with a remarkably soft mouth and eyes.” He also praised “our various censors” for allowing the film, which he called “perhaps the best, most mature of post-war France,” to be shown in the US.

Ms. Presle’s lines are trivial, but she makes up for it with a range of facial expressions, from desperation to passion, that span the film’s entire narrative. Directed by Claude Autant-Lara, who later became a far-right politician and Holocaust denier, it was a huge box office success.

In a statement after her deaththe French presidency praised Ms. Presle’s “bright gaze” and “ingenious pout,” as well as her ability to “incarnate a thousand faces of humanity.”

In a telephone interview, Mr. Bomsel, her son-in-law, who was married to Ms. Presle’s daughter, the actress and director Tonie Marshall, called her “completely instinctive,” adding, “She would be right into the role.”

By the time “Le Diable au Corps” was released, Ms. Presle’s charm had already gotten her noticed in the United States. Early reviews, anticipating the coming criticism, especially in America, characterized her as a stylish actress often trapped in a mediocre film.

The New York Times reviewer of “Four Flights to Love,” or “Paradis Perdu,” directed by Abel Gance, found Ms. Presle “so piquantly beautiful that the whole story became almost convincing.” The film, in which she played a soldier’s wife, launched her to stardom in France in 1940, when the country was once again reeling under German occupation.

Unlike her contemporary Ms. Darrieux, who died in 2017 at the age of 100, Ms. Presle made no compromises during the occupation: she did not make films for the German-financed film company Continental, nor did she participate in the infamous “Journey to Berlin,” a 1942 train journey of movie stars that the Nazis used for propaganda.

Yet she thrived during those four dark years and made twelve films.

Over the course of a career extraordinary for its longevity and productivity — more than 120 films over eight decades — Ms. Presle earned her share of also-rans. In 1950, at the height of her stardom, she moved to Hollywood for small roles in films little remembered today. She also followed her husband, American actor-director William Marshall. But she later remarked to an interviewer, with characteristic sharpness: “I never got anything valuable from love. It was my fault. I wanted love to be the biggest deal of my life; it ended up being the worst.

After her divorce from Mr Marshall, she returned to France with her daughter Tonie in 1951, but later said in an interview, “no one wanted me.” Yet she resurrected herself in the mid-1960s as a star in one of the first French television series:Les Saintes Cheries”, about the daily life of a wealthy Parisian couple. It perfectly reflected the civic ethos of the time before the May 1968 protests, and it became a hit.

From then on it was a series of resurrections for Ms. Presle, with numerous appearances on the Parisian stage in the 1970s and in films, some never crossing the Atlantic and some from important directors such as Jacques Rivette (“La Religieuse,” 1966 ). , Claude Chabrol (“Le Sang des Autres”, 1984) and others. She also appeared in her daughter’s productions.

“Micheline was someone who could reinvent herself,” said Mr. Bomsel.

Micheline Nicole Julia Émilienne Chassagne was born on August 22, 1922 in Paris, the daughter of Robert Chassagne, a stockbroker who was later forced to flee France to avoid trial in a financial scandal, and Yvonne (Bachelier) Chassagne, a painter .

While Mr. Chassagne hid in New York, Ms. Presle — she adopted the last name from one of her first film roles — was raised primarily by her mother. Her first role was in the 1937 film “La Fessee”; her first major presence was in “Jeunes Filles en Détresse,” or “Girls in Distress,” directed by GW Pabst, which bridged the silent and talkie eras. That role brought her to Abel Gance, the director who was best known for the 1927 epic ‘Napoleon’ and became a major star.

“She had a career start that was absolutely spectacular,” Mr Bomsel said. “It would have been very difficult to continue at that pace.”

In later years, Le Figaro wrote in 2011“You could still see her walking around Paris, with her head held high, wearing a trench coat and the flat-soled shoes of a walker, entering the cinemas because she liked a title or an actor.”

Mrs. Presle is survived by two grandchildren. Tonie Marshall, her daughter, died in 2020.

She was “exactly as she appeared on screen,” Mr. Bomsel said. And he added: ‘Being instinctive, she never took it too seriously.’