PARIS, France (AFP) — French actress Madeleine LeBeau, the last surviving member of the cast of “Casablanca”, has died at the age of 92, her family said on Sunday.
LeBeau, who died on May 1, played the role of Yvonne, the spurned girlfriend of Humphrey Bogart’s character Rick Blaine in the classic 1942 movie that also starred Ingrid Bergman.
Born in June 1923 in Antony near Paris, LeBeau fled Paris in 1940 after the German occupation with her husband Marcel Dalio, an actor of Jewish origin, before settling in the US.
LeBeau’s death was announced by her son-in-law Carlos Alberto Pinelli in a report in the Spanish daily newspaper El Pais. He said that she died at her home in Malaga, southern Spain.
After “Casablanca” LeBeau appeared in a number of other Hollywood films before returning to Europe where she was cast in Federico Fellini’s 1963 comedy-drama “8 1/2” and numerous other films by France’s “New Wave” film-makers.
France’s Culture Minister Audrey Azoulay said in a statement LeBeau would be remembered as a “free woman, transcending codes, sublimating each of the roles exceptional directors entrusted to her”.
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