Falbalas, Jean-Paul Gaultier’s favorite film, Le Diable au corps with Gérard Philipe, but also the sparkling heroine of the famous series Les Saintes Chéries, Micheline Presle is a monument of French cinema of the 20th century. This irreducible lover of the stage and of life is celebrating her 101st birthday on Tuesday August 22, 2023.
It is difficult to sum up in a few words the career of this born artist, whom with undisguised admiration François Truffaut considered “the greatest actress in the world”. Her starry path in the seventh art began after a few notable appearances, in 1939 in Young Girls in Distress by Georg Wilhelm Pabst. This is where Micheline Chassagne, her name in the city, adopted her perfect pseudonym of Presle.
In 1947, she played Marthe Grangier in Le Diable au corps. Already absolute star, she has the power to recommend an almost unknown young first to play her lover. His name is Gérard Philipe. The sulphurous story of these two rebellious lovers, inspired by the novel by Raymond Radiguet, has since belonged to the best anthologies of cinema.
Le Diable au corps by Claude Autant-Lara in 1947, with Micheline Presle, Gérard Philipe, Denise Grey…
In front of the camera, Micheline Presle gave the answer to the greatest actors of her time: Tyrone Power (Guérillas, 1950), Errol Flynn (La Taverne de la Nouvelle Orléans, 1951), Alain Delon (Christine, 1958), Jean Gabin and Jean Desailly (The Baron of the lock, 1960), Marcello Mastroianni (The Assassin, 1961)…
The Assassin of Elio Petri in 1961, with Marcello Mastroianni, Micheline Presle…
But it is of course in the historical soap opera of the ORTF Les Saintes Chéries, created by Nicole de Buron and directed by Jean Becker that the charm of the emerald eyes of Micheline Presle will be immortalized. For the 50 million French people at the time, Ève Lagarde, a woman liberated before her time, became a symbol. And this symbol therefore celebrates today, for our greatest happiness, its 101st spring.
Les Saintes Chéries by Jean Becker, screenplay by Nicole de Buron, from 1965 to 1970, with Micheline Presle, Daniel Gélin, Marthe Mercardier, Jacques Higelin, Rufus, Robert Castel, Christian Alers, Pascale Roberts, Jean Yanne…
