Actress Laurence Badie, a television figure in the 1980s, known for her unique voice and who also had a long career in theater and cinema, has died, her agent announced to AFP. She “died this (Thursday) morning at the age of 96 in Brittany,” said Patrick Goavec.
Dubbing cartoons, game shows, classical repertoire, boulevard theater and even cinema, actress Laurence Badie had the gift of making people laugh, with a high and unique tone of voice. Without necessarily knowing her face, generations remember the high-pitched voice she lent to the character of Vera in Scooby-Doo.
Older people tend to remember this petite, cheeky blonde, a laughing little face with a snub nose, who made the big time on the Académie des neuf, the successful midday television show in the 1980s. In her long career , she also appeared in more than a hundred films, series and TV films. Often secondary roles but sometimes with great filmmakers, from Sacha Guitry to François Truffaut via Vincente Minelli, Alain Resnais and Vittorio De Sica.
With her full name Laurence Dolores Badie-Lopes, she was born on June 15, 1928 in Boulogne-Billancourt, near Paris. She studied for a year at HEC but preferred theater so she took lessons with the actor Julien Bertheau. During an audition, she got confused and said “Oh shit!” “You have to take the one who said “shit”,” says the director, a certain Georges Wilson, who brings her to Jean Vilar’s TNP (National Popular Theater), where she stays for almost ten years. She will notably play in The Marriage of Figaro by Beaumarchais, Oedipus by André Gide and A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare.
Already with a predilection for comic roles. “The best years of my life! “There where I learned everything, in contact with great actors: Gérard Philipe, Philippe Noiret, Maria Casarès.” She also worked for the cinema, where she was spotted in Jeux Interdits (1952), by René Clément. She was quickly given roles as a maid. “As people lack imagination, as soon as I had to play a little maid, I was hired. I played a lot of them. But she is also one of the rare French women to play with one of the sacred monsters of Hollywood, Kirk Douglas. A small role in The Passionate Life of Vincent Van Gogh but the scene is ultimately cut during editing. She was to play the character of Adeline Ravoux, created by the painter Vincent Van Gogh.
The boulevard theater will be his universe for decades. She plays in particular in plays by Guitry but, above all, the public flocks for a year and a half to see her alongside Louis de Funès in Oscar, directed by Pierre Mondy.
On the dubbing side, in addition to Véra in Scooby-Doo, she is the French voice of many other cartoon characters such as Casper the friendly ghost or the dog Rocky.
