Saturday, August 14, 2010

Capucine


Born Germaine Lefebvre in Saint-Raphaël, in the South of France, she soon exhibited an independent, non-conformist personality. She attended school in France and received a B.A. in foreign languages. At 17, while riding in a carriage in Paris, a commercial photographer noticed her.

George Dambier


She quickly became a successful fashion model, working for fashion houses Givenchy and Christian Dior. She also adopted a new moniker, Capucine (French for nasturtium). During this time, Capucine met future actress Audrey Hepburn. Both were modelling in Paris, and the two would remain friends for the rest of Capucine's life.

 
George Dambier





In 1949, Capucine made her film debut in the French film Rendez-vous de Juillet. On the set of Rendez-vous, she met Pierre Trabaud. The two married the following year. The marriage lasted only six months, and Capucine would never marry again. In 1957, film producer Charles K. Feldman spotted Capucine while modeling in New York City. Feldman brought her to Hollywood to learn English and to study acting under Gregory Ratoff. She was signed to a contract with Columbia Pictures in 1958 and landed her first English-speaking role in the film Song Without End (1960) Starring opposite Dirk Bogarde. For the next few years, Capucine would go on to make six more major motion pictures before moving to Switzerland in 1962. She continued making films in Europe until her death.





Capucine met actor William Holden in the mid 1960s. Both starred in the films The Lion and The 7th Dawn. Despite the fact that Holden was married to actress Brenda Marshall, the two began a two-year affair. After it ended, she and Holden remained friends until Holden's death in 1981.

Capucine with William Holden

Dirk Bogarde adored Capucine whom he had met on the set of song without end and allegedly asked her to marry him, this is slightly controversial at the time Bogarde was living with his manager and long term companion Anthony Forwood. Much has been made of Bogarde's supposed homosexuality and the true nature of his relationship with Forwood, something that Bogarde never admitted to in any of his biographies. Bogarde always insisted that he and Forwood were simply very good friends.  He did however remain close to Capucine for the rest of her life.  It is also alleged that Capucine was bisexual. 

Capucine with Dirk Bogarde





The Cast Of 'What's New Pussycat'

With Peter O Toole

Capucine's Most Famous Roll, Starring Opposite Peter Sellers as Simone Clouseau,  The Inspectors Extravagant, Cheating And Scheming Wife.






Capucine allegedly suffered from bipolar disorder throughout her life and attempted suicide several times. In 1990, at the age of 62 (NY Times obituary), she finally succeeded by jumping from her eighth-floor apartment in Lausanne, Switzerland. Her obituary in the New York Times stated that her only known survivors were her three cats.

Text Source Wikipedia

50 comments:

  1. She had the world's best profile. And she looked even more beautiful as she aged. It's just tragic she was so miserable. I had no idea of the story of her death.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A very striking woman - so sad about her inner troubles. You would never know it to look at her. You always delight and educate us!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Glamourous through and through. Thank you so much for bring glamour into my life everytime I read your posts. Hope you are having a good summer.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dear Dash - this is so interesting - I had no idea of the story of how she died...I love all your posts about such interesting characters..happy weekend x

    ReplyDelete
  5. So very sad about her death. Capucine was very beautiful. I just finished viewing a film with a much older and still handsome Dirk Bogarde from 1991, also very touching. It is nice to see you posting once more.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Dear Dash, another wonderful post. I knew nothing about Capucine's life, that was very interesting and sad that she finally managed to kill herself. She was such a timeless beauty. What an amazing bone structure! The pictures are stunning.

    I hope you have a fantastic weekend xx

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thank you for this lovely & touching post.My late Grandmother knew Capucine and often described her as the most beautiful yet lonliest woman she'd ever known.
    Capucine didn't like talking about her childhood & one wonders if her complexes & bipolar disorder were stemmed from it.She always brushed off any mention of healing therapy at the time.
    Sadly there wasn't any support system to guide her like wayward starlets often have today & I'm thinking of Lindsay Lohan but in no way comparing her to Capucine of course.
    Her beauty remains uncomparable...

    ReplyDelete
  8. God Dash I had no idea that she was bi polar nor that she committed suicide, so tragic. I loved her in the pink panther, she was such a beauty xx

    ReplyDelete
  9. Dash..another clever and absorbing post. She was beautiful and I remember her well from the Peter Sellers movie. So sad to know that she suffered from mental illness...a very lonely way to spend a lifetime.

    Jeanne xx

    ReplyDelete
  10. Jean thank you for your comment and insight.

    When I was doing my research on Capucine I turned up nothing about her childhood or parents, which I thought odd but seeing as she did not like talking about it, now it makes sense.

    So sad that she came from an age where people had to repress certain levels of emotions and feelings,and certainly did not discuss any inner turmoil they might be going through. Sooner or later it has to come out, in some form usually destructive. Especially difficult for those like Capucine who were in the limelight and had an image to live up to.

    As you have pointed out there are many stars today with problems who do have a support network should they choose to take it.

    I find it tragic that she was estranged from her family (if this was the case) and that the NYT published the fact that her only known survivors were her three cats.

    At least her memory lives on in the films she made and some of the wonderful images that were taken of her which highlighted what a great beauty she was.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Such a tragic life for such a beautiful woman. I think she had that Sophia Lauren beauty about her.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Another fascinating - and beautiful post Dash. Capucine was so gorgeous and the photos you have collected are stunning. What a sad ending though.

    I always feels like I've learned something after I read your posts!
    x

    ReplyDelete
  13. looking for renee and lartigue

    and just found your blog

    lovely

    all of it

    beth

    ReplyDelete
  14. She was such a beautiful woman. I knew about her suicide but not her mental illness. Her personal life is somewhat a mystery but, if it interests anyone, you can read an interview she gave Boze Hadleigh 4-5 years before her death in his book "Hollywood Lesbians".
    Wonderful blog
    vic

    ReplyDelete
  15. Hi Dash, Great blog.
    In your research did you come across where Capucine lived in Lausanne. I have an address of Chemin de Primerose but not certain about it. My surreal novel about Capucine and bipolar is due out early next year. It’s called Capucine and Her Three Feline Philosophers.
    Jim

    ReplyDelete
  16. Jim, you'd better be very careful about your book. In that you are not even aware of Cap's address in Lausanne I suspect you never met her. I spent many hours in her home. She was a dear friend... The family from whom she was entirely estanged (she even bequeathed her ashes to Givenchy not her family) will tear you to bits if you try to publish anything that remotely tries to portray her. You'd better have a good attorney or start changing names. And... she was not bipolar. Those close to her know why she threw herself from her terrace.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Because she was a doode, duh! She was a freakin fugly man minger trying to pass as woman with a ton of plastic surgeries. France wasn't fooled. She never hid it in France. Whenever she was on TV ,they'd say "that's a man", the presenters, everyone. Was no secret. Anyway nothing we love more on the internet that some anonymous fuck pretending to be a dead celeb's friend pretending to "know something you don't" then leaving without spilling the beans. Newsflash: she was old and she was a HE! Suicide should have been done in the 70s or before. Spare us her fugly face all over.

      Delete
  17. Hi Anonymous,

    Can you elaborate a bit how you came to know Capucine? Or what was she like? (Beside amazingly beautiful, that's obvious enough...)
    Sorry for prying, but there is so little to be found about her…
    (By the way, do you happen to know what became of her cats after her death?)

    ReplyDelete
  18. Roy, I met Cap thru a mutual friend. By chance we were neighbors in Lausanne at the time. We vacationed together, shopped in the local Migros together, shared our thoughts about life, etc. She really was quite simple at heart but very bright. Extremely well read, well spoken and aware of then current international events. She was lovely. External beauty is fleeting but Cap's interior beauty was ever-lasting. For those who would really like to know who she was I believe the Boze Hadleigh interview is most revealing.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Wonderful post. Thank you!
    I just watched The Pink Panther and she was great in it. So beautiful.

    Anonymous (January 20, 2013), are you saying Boze Hadleigh really did interview Capucine?
    I thought the book "Hollywood Lesbians" was fiction?

    ReplyDelete
  20. I doubt if I will ever see such beauty again in my lifetime - how dreadful her state of mind must have been in during the years-months-days leading up to her suicide. Tablets and wrists are one thing, but to be so desperate as to choose that type of suicide, well it is way beyond tragic - I just hope that her soul is now at peace and she is walking on golden clouds.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You have such beauty again: Bruce Jenner in a dress. Ru Paul. Same difference. Also the fugly minger that is ava gardiner is another hideous manly face bitch that blind gays think "beautiful". Please buy glasses!

      Delete
    2. To anonymous that in 2017 wrote that about Ava Garner: you are crazy, you are a serious psycho. You dont' know or never seen the young Ava.

      Delete
  21. Jan 20 here. Sept 29 2013, yes the interview took place. In Paris, not in Lausanne.

    October 15, did you know Cap? Something you've written is like something she used to say.

    ReplyDelete
  22. She was so beautiful. I grew up listening to my family adore her. We were distant relations on the French LeFebvre side. When I read about her three surviving cats, I was sad for her. We watched her and loved her from afar. My three daughters and myself look like her, but my niece, who models also, is her mirror image.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're lucky ones to resemble her. She was the most beautiful human being to ever walk on planet Earth.

      Delete
  23. i always love to read about her my father adored her and my name is Capucine Ruth. She also committed suicide on my 20 birthday! !!! Eerie. ....

    ReplyDelete
  24. i read she was a man really dont know if its true

    ReplyDelete
  25. I wonder what happened to her 3 cats after she took her life since she did not have any family.

    ReplyDelete
  26. i am sure she would have loved to be Bill Holden's wife. So sad all of it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. She was into women, as she herself said and William was her close friend. He was in love with Audrey.

      Delete
  27. Does anyone know the name of the younger man Capucine had a relationship with after her affair with William Holden ended? According to an interview with Givenchy, he was a member of the Romanov family and loved her very much. Apparently, he committed suicide sometime after her death.

    ReplyDelete
  28. It was well-known in France that that was a MAN! Did not know William Holden was gay. Good riddance to both!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh puh-lee-ze ! Why do you hate her so much?

      Delete
    2. You obviously did not bother to find out if there was ANOTHER Capucine! There WAS and he/she was a transgender person who had the cruellest cut of all in Morocco. Do your research and discover the truth.!Then, perhaps, you might apologise to all those who loved Germaine Lefebvre aka Capucine.

      Delete
  29. She was my cousin and was not a man!

    ReplyDelete
  30. I don't know how anyone can say such terrible things about a lady who never harmed anyone except herself. She was THE most beautiful person I have ever seen or will see again in my lifetime. She left everything she had to be divided between UNICEF and The Red Cross and was never a burden to anyone. Depression is the most terrible illness one can imagine - I speak from experience. I hope she is now in a wonderful place and at peace - she certainly deserves it. My only regret is that I never knew her. RIP Capucine. x.

    ReplyDelete
  31. I am totally flamboozled by all this. I remember the talk, way back, that she was HE but never read anything about this. Anyway -the face is so hauntingly beautiful that it really does not matter what some think or can prove even ! Strange, though, that I see no mention of "Walk on the wild side" with Laurence Harvey et al. It sort-of summed up her strange and difficult life. Such haunting beauty .RIP dear Capucine.XX

    ReplyDelete
  32. I too dont believe she was a man, what rubbish. She had one of the most photogenic faces ever. And it seems like most beautiful women when young. They are only valued as window dressing. She only got better and better as an actress, and her comedic timing was wonderful. She seemed to have lived a complete life even with her somtimes crippling depression . She was much loved by many people both professionaly and privately and was sad she reached a point where living became to painful. We have the movies, and the hauntingly BEAUTIFUL photos of her.But wish she found something to sustain her will to live, and she could have lived a longer contented life.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Grandma's can always read people the best and have great insight.

    ReplyDelete
  34. I love masterbating to capucines pictures

    ReplyDelete
  35. I love masturbating to capucines pictures

    ReplyDelete
  36. humans shock me all the time ! I think Capucine was an ANGEL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  37. Lauren Bacall Beauty / Look-Alike...Thy Cd B Sisters!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  38. Am watching North to Alaska with John Wayne. She was good in the movie.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Meaningfulness of these problems is so obvious, that further development of different forms of activity assists preparation and realization of correct directions of development.
    http://ise.md/user/pavel263m/

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting French Sampler, I hope you come back soon. I love to read your comments and will reply as soon as I can.