Biography: life and films
Always one with a keen eye for talent, film director Marc Allégret noticed Delorme and gave her her first screen roles in three of his films made during the Occupation: La Belle aventure (1942), Les Petites du quai aux fleurs (1944) and Félicie Nanteuil (1944). In 1945, she married the actor Daniel Gélin and they had a son, Xavier Gélin, the following year; the marriage only lasted ten years. After perfecting her art with drama instructors René Simon and Tania Balachova, Delorme appeared in a series of theatrical productions that included J.B. Priestley's Dangerous Corner (1947), Jean Anouilh's Colombe (1951) and Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House (1952).
After making a memorable impact in a small role on Jean Delannoy's Les Jeux sont faits (1947), the actress was invited by Jacqueline Audry to play the title role in two faithful Colette adaptations - Gigi (1949) and Minne, l'ingénue libertine (1950). These two films made her name and she soon found herself being called upon to play similar cute gamine roles - notably as the lead in H.G. Clouzot's Miquette et sa mère (1950) and Jean-Paul Le Chanois's Sans laisser d'adresse (1951). Yves Allégret's La Jeune folle (1952) allowed her to portray a far more fragile and disturbed example of womanhood, and in Les Dents longues (1952), the only film directed by her first husband Daniel Gélin, she and Gélin offer a poignant depiction of a marital breakdown which they would soon play out in real life. Delorme made a memorable Fantine in Jean-Paul Le Chanois's lavish Les Miserables (1957) and in Julien Duvivier's Voici le temps des assassins (1956) she was cast against type as an evil schemer, capable of seduction and murder.
It was around the mid-1950s that the actress became fearful of being typecast as the perpetual ingénue. This led her to move away from cinema and devote more of her time to her stage career. She had many productive years in the French theatre, appearing in several impressive stagings of plays by Marcel Achard, Luigi Pirandello, Paul Claudel, George Bernard Shaw, Eugène Ionesco and Albert Camus. It was in 1956 that Delorme married the actor Yves Robert - they had met five years previously whilst working together on a production of Jean Anouilh's Colombe, directed by André Barsacq at theThéâtre de l'Atelier in Paris. In 1961, Robert and Delorme founded their own film production company, La Guéville, which had a number of major successes including La Guerre des boutons (1962) and Le Grand blond avec une chaussure noire (1972). The actress appeared in a number of films directed by Robert, notably Un éléphant ça trompe énormément (1976).
From the mid-1960s, Delorme appeared in films infrequently, usually in supporting roles, and from the late 1970s producing was her main activity. She produced several controversial films, including two films by Jacques Doillon - La Drôlesse (1978) and La Fille prodigue (1980). From the 1980s, she made regular appearances on television, appearing in TV movies such as Jacques Demy's La Naissance du jour (1980), in which she played Colette, and series like Madame le proviseur (1994-9). In 1984, French president François Mitterrand appointed her a member of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE), a post she occupied until 1994. Her last film appearance was in Jean-Denis Robert's Sortez des rangs (1996). After suffering from a long illness, Danièle Delorme died in Paris on 17th October 2015, aged 89.
© James Travers 2017
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