María Casares

 Casares was born in A Coruña, Galicia, the daughter of Santiago Casares Quiroga, a minister in Manuel Azaña’s government and Prime Minister of Spain and of Gloria Perez. At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War (1936), the family was forced to flee. Some of her relatives moved to Portugal. The father went to London, the mother and daughter sought refuge in Paris.

 There, Maria attended the Lycée Victor Duruy then, after her graduation, she took speech classes with René Simon. She enrolled in the Paris Conservatoire, where she won the First Prize for tragedy and Second Prize for comedy. In July 1942, she auditioned for Marcel Herrand who engaged her for his Théâtre des Mathurins. There, over the course of the next three years, she appeared in several plays including Deirdre of the Sorrows by J. M. Synge, The Master Builder by Ibsen, Le Malentendu (The Misunderstanding) by Albert Camus (with whom she had an affair), and an especially important premiere, Fédérico, after Prosper Mérimée, with Gérard Philipe.

 In the meantime, she began to appear in films. Her first film role was in Marcel Carné’s Les Enfants du paradis (1945), one of the great classics of French cinema. She also made Les dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945) for Robert Bresson, La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma) (1948) for Christian-Jaque, co-starring Gérard Philipe. For Cocteau, she played Death in his Orphée (1950) with Jean Marais and François Périer and in his Testament d’Orphée (Testament of Orpheus) (1959).

Films:

Someone Else’s America (1995) Alonso’s Mother

Chevaliers de la table ronde, Les (1990) Viviane 


Monte bajo (1989)

Lectrice, La (1988) General’s Widow

De sable et de sang (1987) Dolores

Blanche et Marie (1985) Louise 


Flavia, la monaca musulmana (1974) Sister Agatha

Hieronymus Bosch (1963) (voice)

Testament d’Orphée, ou ne me demandez pas pourquoi!, Le (1960) The Princess

Jardins du Seigneur, Le (1954) (voice)

Ombre et lumière (1951) Caroline Bessier

Orphée (1950) The Princess

Guernica (1950) (voice)

Homme qui revient de loin, L (1949)

Bagarres (1948) Carmelle

Chartreuse de Parme, La (1948) La duchesse Gina de San Severina

Septième porte, La (1948)

Amour autour de la maison, L (1947) Thérèse

Revanche de Roger la Honte, La (1946) Julia de Terrenoire

Roger la Honte (1946) Julia de Noirville

Dames du Bois de Boulogne, Les (1945) Hélène

Enfants du paradis, Les (1945) Nathalie 


TV [2]

Nuits révolutionnaires, Les (1989) La Murène

Bonnes, Les (1985) Madame

Peer Gynt (1981) Ase

Irène et sa folie (1980) Le docteur Burns

Britannicus (1977) Agrippine

Île des chèvres, L (1975) Agata

Reine verte, La (1964)

Yerma (1963) Yerma

Macbeth (1959) Lady Macbeth

Énigmes de l’histoire (1956)


Stage success: 
From 1952 onwards, although she continued to appear in occasional films, she devoted herself mainly to the stage. She joined the Festival d’Avignon, the Comédie-Française and the Théâtre National Populaire under the leadership of Jean Vilar. She toured extensively throughout the world, appearing in the great classics of French theatre, including, in 1958, Corneille’s Le Cid, Victor Hugo’s Marie Tudor and Marivaux’ Le Triomphe de l’Amour (The Triumph of Love) on Broadway.

She took up French nationality in 1975. She published her autobiography, Résidente privilégiée (Privileged Resident) in 1980.

She died at her country house in the chateau de La Vergne, in the small village of Alloue. When she died, she left the house to the village. Today, the domaine de la Vergne is a residence for artists and a setting for performances.Poitou-Charentes.