Madeleine Lebeau, believed to have been the last surviving member of the cast of the iconic 1942 film Casablanca, considered by many (including me) to have been the best movie of all time, has died:
Madeleine Lebeau, the luminous French actress who played Yvonne, the jilted lover of Humphrey Bogart’s Rick Blaine who wells up during the patriotic singing of “La Marseillaise†in the immortal film Casablanca, has died. She was 92.
Lebeau, who later portrayed an actress named Madeleine in another classic, Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2 (1963), died May 1 in Estepona, Spain after breaking her thigh bone, her stepson, documentary filmmaker and environmentalist Carlo Alberto Pinelli, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Lebeau is widely believed to be the last surviving castmember from Casablanca. Not too long before making the film, she herself had escaped Nazi-occupied France with her then-husband, actor Marcel Dalio.
Vive la France!
One by one, year by year, we are losing the few who connect us with the films of Hollywood’s Golden Age. To the best of my knowledge the last living star of that day is Olivia de Havilland, who turns 100 in July.
Sad. However, “The Maltese Falcon” is a better film despite the casting of Mary Astor as Brigid.