In Remembrance: Suzanne Flon

     Suzanne Flon, the elegant French actress who worked with director John Huston in 1952’s Moulin Rouge, and a recipient of two Cesar awards, has passed away on Wednesday June 15, 2005. She was 87.

     Born near Paris on Jan. 28, 1918, Flon was the daughter of a railway worker and a seamstress. At school, she developed an interest in writing poetry. After high school, she worked as an English interpreter at a Parisian department store before serving as a secretary for French singing legend Edith Piaf.

     Flon's first association with acting was as a mistress of ceremonies in a musical revue. It was here that she was discovered and was offered an acting job by Raymond Rouleau. She continued on stage through the early 1940’s, working hard and developing a strong partnership with playwright Jean Anouilh. 

     Flon began acting in films with 1947’s Capitaine Blomet and captivated audiences long before her interests led her to international work in the 1950’s.

     She was an elegant standout as a free-spirited couture model who became the object of fascination and desire for the crippled painter Toulouse-Lautrec played by Jose Ferrer in John Huston’s film Moulin Rouge (1952). Her onscreen poise attracted director Orson Welles, who befriended Flon and cast her as a dispassionate aristocrat in his comedic 1955 thriller, Mr. Ardakin.

     The actress didn’t appear on screen during the latter half of the 1950’s, but made a triumphant return in the anti-war picture Tu ne Tueras Point (Thou Shalt Not Kill, 1961). Flon played the resolute mother of a young man who refused to be drafted during WWI, for which she won the 1961 Venice Film Festival Best Actress award. Welles again called upon her, and she portrayed Miss Pittl in Le Procès (The Trial, 1962), also starring Anthony Perkins and Jeanne Morneau.  In John Frankenheimer’s war thriller, The Train (1964), she excelled as a museum curator who attempts to disrupt the Nazi plans of secretly exporting masterpieces out of France during the Resistance.     

     With a number of stylish yet sensitive roles, Flon’s career boomed through the 1980’s. She was brilliant in her role as Mme. Hautchamp in the Merchant/Ivory collaboration, Quartet (1981). Flon followed the performance by winning the Cesar award for her portrayal of Isabelle Adjani's deaf aunt in the thriller, L' Eté meurtrier  (One Deadly Summer, 1983) and later won again for her role in La Vouivre (The Dragon, 1989), directed by Jean Becker.      

     Movie roles became sparse for Flon but she had some endearing appearances such as Old Cri Cri in Becker’s  (Children Of The Marshland, 1999). Flon nonetheless remained an active performer; she appeared regularly on stage, film, and television and her recognizable voice could be heard in many French documentaries. Among her last films was Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas, 2005) – a war drama set during one Christmas Eve during WWI, and the upcoming comedy Fauteuils d'Orchestre.