Death of Catherine Samie, pillar of the Comédie-Française

” Move forward “, such was the motto of the discreet Catherine Samie. In January 2007, the “young” honorary member left the Comédie-Française after playing Winnie in Oh the beautiful days by Beckett directed by his accomplice Frederick Wiseman. She had been its generous and attentive Dean for eighteen years. The actress had just celebrated with her “magnificent” comrades his fifty years on stage.

Muriel Mayette had organized a jubilee for him on this occasion. Moved, the former general administrator of Molière’s house testifies: “When she became dean, she spread out, she let herself be led by the younger generations and her game became much simpler, more modern. She made less effort whereas when she was younger with Jean-Paul Roussillon or Alain Pralon, it was more difficult. It has become unifying. Above all, she had an incredible voice and very light scores. She accepted growing old. She will be missed, she was one of those great figures who have a style like Francoise Seigner. I think of his daughter, they were close. »

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For Catherine Hiegel, former dean of French, Catherine Samie was a “friend”: “She was incredibly beautiful and incredibly charming. When I was young, she reminded me of Liz Taylor, she loved to laugh and please with naivety, she was very touching. We created and played together Savannah Bayby Marguerite Duras directed by Éric Vigner, we went on tour. Catherine was anxious, she was always afraid of making a mistake, but she was a generous partner. »

In France and on tour, Catherine Samie had performed more than seventy roles from the repertoire, ranging from Shakespeare to Feydeau, Marivaux, Molière and Beaumarchais. “I was lucky, I received without asking”marveled the one who considered herself an instrumentalist. Serving the text with the desire to be as close as possible to the public.

In his dressing room, there were words from his daughter Céline Samie – who also passed through the great House – including one “Murder” lucky charm scribbled on the mirror and the manuscript of the play she was performing, worn from turning the pages. As a child, this Parisian born on February 3, 1933 was marked by the war raging near the Belgian border where she grew up.

Her housekeeper mother insists that she and her sister learn to play the violin. Catherine takes dance lessons and theater classes at Rue Blanche. She continued with the National Higher Conservatory of Dramatic Art in the same promotion as Michel Duchaussoy and Jean-Paul Belmondo with teachers whose teachings she retained; Pierre Dux and Béatrix Dussane.

Hardworking

In 1956, at the age of 23, this shy woman with a luminous gaze entered the Comédie-Française with two classic and modern comedy prizes for her interpretations of Molière – she was Dorine in Tartuffe — and Courteline (Big Sorrow). She began by dubbing the illustrious Andrée de Chauveron who played Madame Jourdain, then took on the role of Dame Claude, in The Miser. “The residents doubled the roles of the members and in July we were the kings, we played all the big roles! »explained Catherine Samie in 1997 (France 3 Nancy).

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Hard at work, always dynamic, the actress rehearsed until the last minute whether to play a servant of Molière, the Empress of Austria, Môme Crevette, the mute Catherine of Mother Courage or Madeleine in Savannah Bay by Marguerite Duras. She adapted to French directors like Louis Seigner, Jean Meyer and Jean-Paul Roussillon and learned her craft with those she admired; Michel Aumont, Berthe Bovie, Jacques Charon and Robert Hirsch.

The characters helped her to live, assured Catherine Samie, who herself had been an interim administrator of the Comédie-Française in 1990. In 2002, in the actors’ home of the Comédie-Française, she had read The last lettera monologue by Frederick Wiseman, based on Life and Destiny by Vasily Grossman. A Jewish mother bids farewell to her son before being executed by the Nazis. The great documentarian made a film of it.

Catherine Samie took her first steps in the cinema in 1957, with an appearance in Boil Potby Julien Duvivier after Émile Zola with Gérard Philipe. Then stands out regularly on the big screen, in The Distracted with Pierre Richard (1970), She doesn’t drink, she doesn’t smoke, she doesn’t flirt, but… she talks! et She talks more… she shootsboth by Michel Audiard (1970 and 1972) or The Girls (1985). She is the mother of Josiane Balasko in her feature film, My life is hell (1991), a grandmother in Bernie by Albert Dupontel (1996) or the psychoanalyst of Sylvie Testud in Victoireby Stéphanie Murat (2004).

On television, she chases Michel Duchaussoy in Desolation Benchbased on a short story by Henry James revised by Claude Chabrol (1974), wife of Michel Bouquet in The Origin of Violence by Élie Chouraqui (2016). But theater was Catherine Samie’s great passion. In 1997, she was crowned with a Molière d’Honneur. Later, in 2011, she received the national order of the Legion of Honor. In 2012, she made a notable return to the French by playing the hero’s mother in Formerly peer by Ibsen edited by Éric Ruf, one of the “magnificent” directors she appreciated.