Lilyan Chauvin(1925-2008)

French character actress Lilyan Chauvin may be one of those actors or actresses whose face you know without knowing their names. Chauvin was a long time veteran of the European stage, and was adept at playing strict, but sometimes loving characters. To horror fans, she might be best known as the sinister Mother Superior in Douce nuit, sanglante nuit (1984), but her career started back in the 1950s when she was plucked from the stage to appear in small minor roles in motion pictures. One notable film was with John Wayne in Le Grand Sam (1960). For about thirty years, Chauvin was one of the busiest character actresses in Hollywood, appearing in over forty films as well as on television. Her many film credits include La bidasse (1980), Predator 2 (1990), Société secrète (1992), Universal Soldier (1992) as Jean-Claude Van Damme's mother, and most recently Steven Spielberg's Arrête-moi si tu peux (2002) with Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio.