Marie Mergey(1922-2017)

Born in 1922, French character actress Marie Mergey appeared mainly in bit parts. Her career however, spanning sixty-odd years, is a model of longevity. And every rule having an exception, she did play two important roles. Her sharp cheekbones and jawline indeed allowed her to play two memorable peevish wives, married to Bourvil in Claude Autant-Lara's 'La jument verte'(1959) and to Pierre Mondy in the same director's 'Le comte de Monte Cristo' (1961). Curiously, her roles dwindled after that but nature decided to soften her features and she reappeared in the mid-eighties as the ideal grandmother or the old lady you meet on the bus or at the butcher's. She can occasionally get mysterious and disturbing though, like in Franck Allera's remarkable short 'Sentence finale' (2005).