Jeanne Fusier-Gir

French actress Jeanne Fusier-Gir was the daughter of Léon Fusier, a popular actor and comedian working in the 19th century. She studied theater under the tutelage of the legendary Firmin Gémier and upon graduating was mentored by the equally important actor, playwright, and filmmaker Sacha Guitry, with whom she would work several times on stage and in films. With her stern countenance and hair often bound in a severe bun, Fusier-Gir was mostly utilized in smaller character parts in her early career, usually in comedies, and was frequently cast as a housekeeper or as the matriarch. Her film work with Guitry in the 1940s, during the dark days of the Vichy government, is of particular importance and some of her most notable collaborations with him include "Mlle. Désirée" (1942), and about Napoleon's first love affair with Désirée Clary; the romantic melodrama "My Last Mistress," released the following year and dealing with a sculptor going blind; the 1944 biopic "La Malibran," about the famous singer Maria Malibran; and the 1948 film "The Lame Devil." She would continue working with Guitry throughout the 1950s as well. Fusier-Gir also worked with director Henri-Georges Clouzot on "Le Corbeau," released in 1943, about poison pen letters that implicate an entire village in unseemly acts, and she reteamed with Clouzot for the noirish thriller "Quai des Orfévres," released in 1947.