Nicole Maurey

This glamorous French import who was born Nicole Arlette Maurey in a Paris suburb on December 20, 1925, began studying dancing in her early career but switched to films in 1944, where she was cast in various heroine roles. She made her French film debut with a featured role in the costume period pieces Le cavalier noir (1945) starring Georges Guétary and Paméla (1945) starring Fernand Gravey. She earned her first starring role as the title character in the fantasy Blondine (1945). After some time away, she reappeared in film in the early 1950s and gained some momentum with roles in Diary of a Country Priest (1951), Rendezvous in Grenada (1951) opposite Spanish tenor Luis Mariano, the comedy fantasy Le dernier Robin des Bois (1952), the crime thriller Opération Magali (1953), the heavy drama Companions of the Night (1953) and the much lighter L'oeil en coulisses (1953). Nicole began to flirt with Hollywood stardom in the 50s co-starring with Bing Crosby in both the drama Little Boy Lost (1953)and musical comedy High Time (1960); Charlton Heston in the adventure drama Secret of the Incas (1954); Mickey Rooney in the war drama The Bold and the Brave (1956); Danny Kaye in the war comedy Me and the Colonel (1958) and Jeff Chandler in the western The Jayhawkers! (1959). When things didn't pan out, she moved and settled in England in the next decade and appeared pleasantly in a variety of films but without much fanfare. Some include The Scapegoat (1959) with Alec Guinness; The House of the Seven Hawks (1959) with Robert Taylor; His and Hers (1961) with Terry-Thomas;and Why Bother to Knock (1961) and The Very Edge (1963) both starring Richard Todd. Her most memorable movie role of that period was that of Christine in the classic sci-fi horror Invasion of the Triffids (1963) in which she was coupled with Jesse Ed Azure as they escape from flesh-eating plants. Eventually returning to her homeland where she filmed the secret agent drama Killer Spy (1965) and appeared as Michele Champion in the dramatic TV series Champion House (1967), Nicole appeared sporadically on film and especially on TV. Featured in the film drama Gloria (1977), she also appeared in a small part in the highly popular biopic Chanel Solitaire (1981). Married and divorced (1950-1960) from actor Jacques Gallo, she later wed in the 1970's but divorced again. Nicole died of natural causes on March 11, 2016, in France, at age 90.