Micheline Presle has passed away. The French actress starred in many throughout her career, but audiences will best remember her for starring in the infamous Devil in the Flesh.
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That film proved to be controversial at the time thanks to its content. However, the National Board of Review favored the film voting it as one of the best films of that year. Presle starred as Marthe, a nurse who is married to a WWI soldier. While her husband is away, Marthe starts an affair with a younger man that results in her pregnancy.
Released in 1947, the film also started Presle’s career. She would go on to star in several different movies and start a career in Hollywood. The actor changed her name from Micheline Nicole Julia to Micheline Presle. She signed a deal with 20th Century Fox in 1950.
She ended up starring opposite John Garfield in Jean Negulesco’s Under My Skin the same year. She would go on to star in American Guerilla in the Philippines (1950), and in The Adventures of Captain Fabian (1951).
Micheline Presle Had a Long Career
Presle would later star in the Nobel Prize-focused The Prize in 1963. That film also starred Paul Newman. Presle played a scientist in the film. A year prior she appeared in If a Man Answers alongside Bobby Darin.
Presle made a pivot to television during the late 1960s. She starred in the French comedy Les Saintes Chéries from 1965 to 1971. However, she would return to films for The Legend of Frenchie King in 1971. She would follow that up with Samuel Fuller’s Thieves After Dark in 1984 and Alain Resnais’ I Want to Go Home 1989. For the latter, Presle garned a César nomination, the French equivalent to the Academy Award.
Ultimately, Presle didn’t win the award, but French audiences recognized her contributions to the industry. In 2004, she won a honorary César for her long and illustrious career, pivoting between Hollywood and French cinema.
Presle’s son confirmed that she passed away in Nogent-sur-Marne, a suburb of Paris. He didn’t reveal a cause of death for Presle. The actor was 101 years old at the time of her passing. Presley had one daughter, director Tonie Marshall, who previously died in 2020 at the age of 68. She was known for becoming the first first female director to win a César for Venus Beauty Institute.