2023-04-22 07:00:00
IThere are those who refused any compromise with Germany during the Second World War, like Michèle Morgan, who left to shoot in the United States, or Josephine Baker, engaged alongside Free France. And many others, who continued their careers under Vichy, notably hired by Continental Films, a production company based in Paris, financed by Nazi Germany and dependent on Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda… This is the case of Danielle Darrieux, one of France’s favorite actresses of the late 1930s, who notably enjoyed enormous success with the romantic film Mayerling (1936), d’Anatole Litvak.
During the Second World War, she made the choice to stay in Paris, even though Hollywood reached out to her by offering her a salary of 7 million dollars, a real fortune for the time. The reason ? The Continental wants her, she wants to stay in France with the directors and actors she knows, and above all, Hollywood displeases her: “They want to change my face, change my hairstyle, they want to give me another soul, well no , I’ve had enough,” she said of the Californian studios…
“The Train of Shame”
It was also the time when she crossed paths with Porfirio Rubirosa, a Hispanic with a disturbing look, a diplomat from the Dominican Republic, but above all a playboy and a party animal, reports film historian Jérôme Bimbenet in a very documented book on life. by Danielle Darrieux during the Occupation (Trip to Berlineditions Tallandier).
They meet at social events in occupied Paris, linger at the Ritz bar, dance in the cabarets where Henri Salvador or Django Reinhardt break through… The young actress is crazy about him, she lives in her bubble, even though some enter in the resistance or that the majority of Parisians suffer from deprivation.
But in December 1941, the party ended for Rubirosa: its president, Rafael Trujillo, declared war on Germany in the wake of the United States. The Dominican diplomat is under surveillance, before being sent to detention in Germany after falling out with the Gestapo, during a drunken evening at the cabaret L’Aiglon.
READ ALSODanielle Darrieux, actress with 100 films, dies at 100Danielle Darrieux is devastated, she runs to the Reich Ambassador, Otto Abetz, to find a solution. It was then that she was offered a deal: if she went to Berlin to present her hit film First datefilmed for the Continental, we can be more conciliatory with our turbulent lover…
The Germans thus concoct a propaganda trip, to support the cultural policy of the Reich, with Darrieux as an international star, accompanied by other artists such as Albert Préjean, René Dary, Junie Astor, Suzy Delair and Viviane Romance. All leave for Berlin in what will later be called the “train of shame”.
Expensive paid
In the German capital, speeches, visits and receptions follow one another, until this evening offered on March 21, 1942 by the Goebbels. The French delegation finds artists there, they are presented with the first German film in natural colors, The Beautiful Diplomatbefore seeing the Minister of Propaganda, particularly at ease, accompanying on the piano the actress Marika Rökk, a former dancer who became a star of the Reich.
The conversations linger, Danielle Darrieux isolates herself with Magda Goebbels – who speaks French – and tells her frankly the purpose of her presence: to find her lover, detained in Bad Nauheim, at all costs. Magda is captivated by the story, reports author Jérôme Bimbenet, and asks her husband to speed up their meeting…
READ ALSOFuneral of Danielle Darrieux: the anger of Dominique BesnehardThe French star thus obtains permission to leave the delegation and leaves the next day to find Rubi, detained with other diplomats, in a closely guarded hotel: ten days are granted to them in gratitude for the trip of the actress… Expensive paid, but she is completely happy.
She soon gets more: a few weeks later, Porfirio is finally exchanged for diplomats and German agents rounded up in the neighborhoods of Ciudad Trujillo, according to the agreement reached. Here he is free, he returns to France and finds the actress, filming in Perpignan, before marrying her in September in Vichy.
Darrieux then decides to break his contract with the Continental and leads his life as a couple, notably in his chalet in Megève, before returning to the Paris region, while his playboy husband lives on his hooks and continues his dealings of all kinds…
“Get the hell out right away”
Upon release, the young bride is worried, just like her comrades who were part of the “train of shame”. She goes to the convocation of the purification committee and falls, by chance, on her first husband, the director Henri Decoin, who takes her file in hand: “But what are you doing there? he asks her. But you get out of here right away! »
Case closed. She leaves without being questioned and will not be prosecuted, no doubt protected by her husband’s status as a diplomat. Lucky until the end, while her films shot by the Continental could have earned her at least some blame…
READ ALSODanielle Darrieux, eternal “Madame de” After the war, she returned to the sets, chose more consistent roles and left Rubirosa, as if to wipe the slate clean. She will never stop touring and will be very successful (The Cicero Affair, The Red and the Black, The Demoiselles de Rochefort, Eight Women…), before dying in 2017, at over a hundred years old.
As for this famous trip to Germany, which resurfaced in the 1970s, she defended herself by putting everything down to love passion. “Back in Paris, the rumors started, she justified herself after the fact. People were whispering behind my back. They said, “How awful! Danielle Darrieux is in the collaboration.” My God, they didn’t know anything! I was just a woman in love. »
Darrieux collaborator?, asks the author. ” Certainly not. But Darrieux credulous, naive, madly in love, who crossed the Occupation with carelessness and a lack of judgment on events, certainly, concludes Jérôme Bimbenet. And that cannot be compensated by love passion and youth…”
“Journey to Berlin, Danielle Darrieux under occupation”by Jérôme Bimbenet, Tallandier editions, April 2023, 304 pages, 21.50 euros.
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