Andrée Mégard
A white woman wearing a black dress with a white collar, and a chunky metallic necklace. Her shoulders are square to the camera but her face is almost in profile. Her dark hair is arranged back, away from her face and neck but covering her ears.
Andrée Mégard photographed by Jean Reutlinger
Born
Marie Adélaïde Alexandrine Chamonal

1869
Saint-Amour, French Third Republic
Died1952 (aged 82–83)
Other namesAndrée Mégard-Gémier
Andree Megard
OccupationActress
SpouseFirmin Gémier

Andrée Mégard (born Marie Adélaïde Alexandrine Chamonal, 1869–1952), was a French actress and stage beauty.

Early life

Marie Adélaïde Alexandrine Chamonal was born in 1869, in Saint-Amour, in the Jura Mountains. Her parents were "well-off peasants" who apprenticed her to an aunt who ran a dry good store; she ran away from the aunt at fifteen, and landed alone in Paris.[1][2]

Career

Mégard posing to show the back of a Redfern tea gown with a transparent embroidered jacket, worn when she played Anna Karenina, 1907

Mégard worked as an artists' model as a young woman in Paris, especially for artist Auguste Toulmouche.[1] She was on the Paris stage from 1896 to 1925, appearing in shows including Shakepearean tragedies, comedies, and plays directed by her husband, Firmin Gémier.[3] She played the love interest, Roxane, in a 1913 revival of Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, while she was having an affair with Rostand himself.[4] She starred in a stage adaptation of Anna Karenina in Paris in 1907. In 1908 she knocked herself unconscious on stage during an emotional scene.[5] She appeared in one silent film, La tour de Nesle (1909).

Mégard was considered "tall, graceful, and distinguished looking."[6] Her hairstyles[7] and the designs of her costumes, hats, and gowns were reported in detail,[8][9] internationally,[10] often with photographs or drawings showing their features.[11][12][13] She was especially known for wearing the creations of Redfern, the English design house.[14] A New York writer in 1906 declared of the Paris theatre scene that "Even the critics themselves, disdainful of the pieces they have had to comment upon, turn their clever pens to the question of clothes."[15] "Madame Mégard has for many years back been one of the recognized beauties of the French stage, and as such as earned more than one succés de jolie femme," commented a London writer in 1907, "but it is only recently that her power as an actress has been fully realized."[16]

Personal life

Andrée Mégard married actor and director Firmin Gémier.[17] She was an enthusiastic automobile driver by 1909;[18] "There is no more intrepid 'chauffeuse' on the white roads of France," noted one report, after she and her sister were injured in a motoring accident in Brittany.[19] Mégard died in 1952.

References

  1. 1 2 Berlanstein, Lenard R. (2001). Daughters of Eve. Harvard University Press. pp. 24–25. ISBN 9780674005969.
  2. ↑ "Some Parisian Artistes". Lady's Realm. 13: 194–196. 1902.
  3. ↑ Mariani, Angelo (1904). Figures contemporaines tirées de l'Album Mariani (in French). Flammarion.
  4. ↑ Lloyd, Sue; Lloyd, Susan M. (2002). The Man who was Cyrano: A Life of Edmond Rostand, Creator of Cyrano de Bergerac. Unlimited Publishing LLC. p. 295. ISBN 9781588320728.
  5. ↑ "Actress' Emotion too Realistic". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. January 12, 1908. p. 14. Retrieved October 7, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ↑ "Successor to 'Divine' Sarah". Austin American-Statesman. May 24, 1908. p. 20. Retrieved October 7, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ↑ C. I. B. (October 20, 1901). "The 'Coiffure Basse'". New-York Tribune. p. 22. Retrieved October 7, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ↑ Jeannette (December 8, 1920). "Le dernier Cri de Paris". The Sketch. p. 302 – via ProQuest.
  9. ↑ "From Paris: Stage Costumes". Vogue. April 19, 1906. p. 647 – via ProQuest.
  10. ↑ "Fresh from Paris". The San Francisco Examiner. December 6, 1923. p. 15. Retrieved October 7, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ↑ Fayes, Harriet Edward (July 1910). "Gleanings Here and There in the Bypaths of Fashion". Theatre Magazine: xviii.
  12. ↑ Raphael, John N. (April 8, 1908). "Free from the Censor; Plots from Paris". The Sketch. p. 400. Retrieved October 6, 2019.
  13. ↑ de Villiers, Idella (December 12, 1909). "Warm Walking Costumes for Winter Wear". The Boston Globe. p. 60. Retrieved October 7, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ↑ Miller, Sanda; McNeil, Peter (2018-02-22). Fashion Journalism: History, Theory, and Practice. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781474269667.
  15. ↑ "From Paris: Stage Costumes". Vogue. 27: 647. April 19, 1906 – via ProQuest.
  16. ↑ Fournier, Louis (May 1907). "London as the Fashion Center of the World". Pearson's Magazine. 17: 5–7.
  17. ↑ The International Who's who: Who's who in the World : a Biographical Dictionary of the World's Notable Living Men and Women. International Who's Who Publishing Company. 1911. p. 499.
  18. ↑ "She Gave $20 Bill for Automobile Ride to Beggar". Oakland Tribune. November 21, 1909. p. 31. Retrieved October 7, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. ↑ "The Week in Paris". The Observer. September 4, 1910. p. 8. Retrieved October 7, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
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