In French cinema, few have crossed time and generations with such ease as Micheline Presle: as she turns 100 this Monday, August 22the Parisian actress has been able, since the beginning of her career in 1937, to choose her roles with precision, to embody strong and powerful women who have earned her significant fame.
It must be said that for a long time, they were three, “three glorious” of the golden age of French cinema: Danielle Darrieux, Michèle Morgan, and her. She, who, with her mischievous gaze, has conquered so many directors, artists and actors. Friend of Jean Cocteau, Raymond Queneau or Charles Trenetshe notably launched the career of Gérard Philipe, who would play with her in one of her most famous films, The Devil in the Bodyreleased in 1947. She will also be one of the first French women to make a career in Hollywood, where she spent many years.
Today, there is only her: Michèle Morgan died in 2016, Danielle Darrieux in 2017. And when she remembers these two women, no jealousy, no resentment. “She was my eldest and I already adored her before becoming an actress, she started very young. In reality, we hardly ever talked about cinema. Danielle was like me. We have a life, and then we are also an actor, but we have a normal life. Well, normal…“, she notably entrusted to the Parisian about Danielle Darrieux.
His birthday ? She doesn’t even want to hear about it. “I don’t like to talk about my age. It does not interest me at all. No, nothing special“. No, Micheline Presle, as passionate as ever, prefers to talk about cinema, about his filmsthe latest outings and those she was going to see regularly before confinement.
His daughter Tonie, his pillar now gone
But in the past two years, everything has changed for her: the actress, who lives in a retirement home reserved for artists, benefits less from Parisian life. And she lost her pillar, her “little one”: her daughter Tonie Marshall, who died in March 2020 of lung cancer.
Harsh news for the actress, who had acted in all of her daughter’s films: having become a successful director, Tonie Marshall had notably received the César for best director and best film in 2000 for Vénus Beauté, becoming the first woman to get it.
A real pride for the mother and daughter, very committed to the condition of women: while Micheline Presle had, in 1971, signed the “Manifesto of 143”for the right to abortion, Tonie had all women wear a white ribbon during the Cesar 2018 ceremony, in tribute to the victims of feminicide.
But despite this terrible ordeal and the passage of time, taking her friends and her health with her, Micheline Presle is not one of those women who give up and give up: “Until the end, I will love life, I have always loved it“, she confides to Figaro. And we still love the talent of Micheline Presle.