Jeanne d'Alcy

While her film career only lasted a short seven years, Jeanne d'Alcy carried the distinction of being the first French screen actress in the history of cinema. She first collaborated on-screen with silent film imagineer and future husband Georges Méliès in "The House of the Devil," an 1896 three-minute short that, while implementing a comedic pantomime style, is widely considered to be the first horror film ever made. d'Alcy began working with Méliès after he became the new owner of the Théâtre Robert-Houdin. A grand stage magician and illusionist, Méliès saw film as a new way to dazzle audiences with spectacular productions and visual trickery, and the director helmed more than 500 films between 1896 and 1913, the year of his first wife's death. After marrying Méliès in 1925, d'Alcy operated a toy stall in Montparnasse, an area of Paris, which her husband managed for lack of other income. In 1952, 14 years after her husband's death, d'Alcy appeared in the half-hour biography "Le grand Méliès," with the director's son André portraying his legendary father. Until 2011, the significance of d'Alcy and Méliès's work was largely forgotten by the moviegoing public; Martin Scorsese's Oscar-nominated 3D film "Hugo" brought the auteur and the transfixing actress back into the spotlight."Hugo" served as a love letter to Méliès, played by Ben Kingsley; d'Alcy, played by Helen McCrory; and one of the couple's most revered collaborations, "A Trip to the Moon."