Denise Darcel

Denise Darcel
Born	Denise Billecard 8 September 1924(1924-09-08) Paris, France
Died	23 December 2011(2011-12-23) (aged 87) Los Angeles, California
Years active	1948–1963
Spouse	Peter Crosby (divorced) Richard Vance (1972–divorced) George Simpson Jr. (1990–2003) (his death)
Children	Chris and Craig

Denise Darcel (née Billecard; 8 September 1924 – 23 December 2011) was a French actress who also made films in Hollywood.

Born as Denise Billecard in Paris, she was college educated. According to one of her friends, whom she met in Paris during WWII, she was a passenger in an L-5 Stinson light observation aircraft on VJ Day to see the celebration from the air. The pilot, James Helinger Sr., a US Army Air Corps glider pilot (the friend) was at the controls, while they flew under several bridges along the Seine and finally, under the Eiffel Tower, with the crowds below.

She was a cabaret singer in Paris after World War II before being spotted by Hollywood. Denise came to the United States in 1947 and became an American citizen in 1952.

Her first film appearance of note was in Battleground (1949). She appeared on Broadway in the musical Pardon Our French in 1950. She made quite an impression in Tarzan and the Slave Girl (1950) opposite Lex Barker, then co-starred with Robert Taylor in Westward the Women (1952) and Glenn Ford in Young Man with Ideas (1952). In 1953, she was seen in the swimming musical Dangerous When Wet, which starred Esther Williams (1953). Her most important film was Vera Cruz (1954) where she played the female lead opposite Burt Lancaster and Gary Cooper. She only made one more film after that, Seven Women from Hell (1961).

As her film and television career began to wane, Darcel at forty-one became an ecdysiast appearing in theatres in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Oakland, and Los Angeles. She retired from stripping after a few years.

She returned to the cabaret circuit, made a few appearances on television. In 1991 she was cast as Solange La Fitte in the Los Angeles 20th Anniversary Revival of the musical Follies produced by the Long Beach Civic Light Opera. She would later repeat the role of Solange in 1995 for revivals in Houston and Seattle.

Married and divorced three times, Darcel remained close to her two sons, Chris and Craig. Online music store iTunes recently made Darcel's album "Banned in Boston" available for purchase alongside Lizabeth Scott's album "Lizabeth".

In September 2009, she was honored with the Cinecon Career Achievement Award, presented in Hollywood at a banquet held at the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel. Prior to the ceremony, a new 35mm color print of her 1953 film Flame Of Calcutta was screened at the Egyptian Theater. After the screening, she was interviewed by actor Stan Taffel. At the banquet, she cheerfully announced to the audience, "I'm Back". She died in 2011 after emergency surgery to repair a ruptured aneurysm.

Filmography

• To the Victor (1948) (uncredited) as Bar Singer
• Thunder in the Pines (1948) as Yvette Cheron
• Battleground (1949) as Denise
• Tarzan and the Slave Girl (1950) as Lola
• Westward the Women (1951) as Fifi Danon
• Young Man with Ideas (1952) as Dorianne Gray
• Dangerous When Wet (1953) as Gigi Mignon
• Flame of Calcutta (1953) as Suzanne Roget aka The Flame
• Vera Cruz (1954) as Countess Marie Duvarre
• The Martha Raye Show (1954) as herself
• The Milton Berle Show (1 episode, 1956)
• Tightrope as Terri (1 episode, 1960)
• Seven Women from Hell (1961) as Claire Oudry
• Naked City as Madeleine Douvay (1 episode, 1962)
• Combat! as Annette (1 episode, 1963)

External links

• Denise Darcel at the Internet Movie Database
• Denise Darcel at AllRovi
• Denise Darcel at the Internet Broadway Database
• Photographs of Denise Darcel
• Template:Http://www.cinecon.org/cinecon45 pictures3.html