Who Are Those Gals? ~ Paulette Dubost

 

Paulette Marie Emma Deplanque was born in Paris, France on October 8, 1910.She was the 11th child of Suzanne Dubost, a singer at the Opéra-Comique, and her gas-engineer husband. Under the influence of her mother (whose name she took), Paulette became a ballet student at the Paris Opera at the age of eight. In her memoirs, C'est Court, la Vie (Life Is Short, 1992), Dubost claimed to have attended courses given by the great Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova and that, when in her teens, the infamous financier Alexandre Stavisky had fallen in love with her.

She began her career at the age of 8 at the Paris Opera. As Paulette Dubost she went on to appear in 250 films and worked with directors such as Marcel Carné, Jean Renoir, Max Ophüls and François Truffaut. Her best-known role is as Lisette in Renoir's “The Rules of the Game” (La règle du jeu, 1939). Originally intended to be a small role offering only a couple of days' work, the extent of her part grew during the four-month shooting schedule.

Having refused an offer from 20th Century-Fox in Hollywood, Dubost spent much of the second world war in Morocco with her French businessman husband, André Ostertag, before returning to French films. Max Ophüls cast her as one of a group of prostitutes on an annual holiday in the country in Le Plaisir (1951), with Jean Gabin, and in Lola Montès (1955) as Josephine, Lola's maid, a calming influence on her notorious mistress.

Dubost continued to work into her 90s and was paid homage just prior to her 100th birthday in the popular TV ‘Programme Vivement Dimanche’, in which she was seen dancing to the show's closing music.

Her marriage ended in divorce in 1944. The couple had a daughter named Christiane born in 1942 who is an interior decorator.

Dubost appeared as Madame Diogène in the  1965 Euro-western “Viva Maria!” with Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau.

DUBOST, Paulette (Paulette Marie Emma Deplanque) [10/8/1910, Paris, Île-de-France, France, - 9/21/2011, Longjumeau, Essonne, France] – author, dancer, theater, film, TV actress, singer, married to businessman Andre Ostertag (1936-1944) mother of Christiane Ostertag [1942-    ].

Viva Maria! – 1965 (Madame Diogène)