Biography

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.

For Louis Malle, Dubost appeared with Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau in Viva Maria! (1965) and, 25 years later, in Milou en Mai (Milou in May, 1990). In the latter, she was the matriarch who is seen briefly at the beginning, sobbing while listening to the radio news about the riots in Paris in May 1968, but is soon revealed to be busy cutting onions.

Although Paulette Dubost, who has died aged 100, appeared in far more films than the number of years she lived for, most cinemagoers know her best as Lisette, the coquettish chambermaid in Jean Renoir's La Règle du Jeu (The Rules of the Game, 1939), one of cinema's masterpieces.

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.

In 1931 Dubost began her film career as a soubrette, continuing in supporting roles in dozens of commercial comedies, mainly for home consumption, usually playing characters under her own first name, otherwise Annette, Babette or Nichette.