Marcelle Maurette

Marcelle Maurette (14 November 1903 – 24 October 1972) was a French playwright and screenwriter. She gained international prominence for her play Anastasia, based on the phenomenon of Anastasia impersonators. She was considered a prominent literary figure in her native France, receiving the Legion of Honour, Order of Arts and Letters, and the Prix Thiers, among other accoaldes.

Early life Marcelle Marie Joséphine Maurette was born in Toulouse to General Georges Maurette and Marie-Louise Donbernard, on 14 November 1903. (See "Birthdate notes" section lower down page.) She was educated at St. Nom de Jésus, Toulouse, Cours Bouchut, Paris, and the Convent of the Filles de Notre Dame, Limoges. The painter Ingres was her great-great-uncle.

She began writing as a teenager: short stories, articles and poems, for which she won prizes. In 1931 she married Count Yves de Becdelièvre who would later write a book about her: Marcelle Maurette, ma femme: journal de sa vie, 1903–1972. She was energetic and outgoing, enjoying socialising with her upper-class friends as much as her theatre and cinema work.

Theatre, cinema, and other writing

In 1937 Maurette began to concentrate on writing plays, and in 1942 stopped working as a journalist and reviewer as she took up screenwriting too.

In the 1930s, when her theatrical work began to flourish, more French women than ever before were being recognised for their talent as dramatists and seeing their plays performed on the Parisian stage.

The peak of her career came in the 1950s as a result of writing Anastasia. An English translation/adaptation by Guy Bolton (1952) was staged in England by Mary Kerridge and John Counsell, then in 1953 shown on television where Vivien Leigh saw it and recommended it to her husband Laurence Olivier for a London production at the St. James's Theatre. It opened in New York on Broadway at the Lyceum in early 1955. In 1956 the play was presented at the Falmouth Playhouse in Massachusetts with the Mexican actress Dolores del Río and continued with a tour of seven other theaters throughout New England. Then, after bidding in competition with Warner and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, She was a commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. The Académie française awarded her two literary prizes: in 1952 the Prix Thiers and in 1962 the Prix Paul Flat. She was a member of various prestigious literary societies: the Société des auteurs et compositeurs dramatiques, the Société des gens de lettres, the Société des poètes français, and the Académie des Jeux Floraux de Toulouse. She was also on the Council of Administration of the ORTF, the French broadcasting organisation. A library at Guémené-Penfao has been named after her: the Médiathèque Marcelle Maurette.

Works

Plays 1931: Printemps 1934: Celle qui revint 1937: Madame Capet 1939: Manon Lescaut, after l'Abbé Prévost 1941: Marie Stuart 1945: Le Roi Christine 1948: Thérèse Raquin, after Émile Zola 1949: Neiges, co-writer Georgette Paul 1950: Anna Karénine, after Tolstoy 1954: L'Affaire Lafarge 1952: Anastasia 1962: La Nuit de feu 1966: Laurette or l'Amour voleur 1978: Rayons de gloire

Films 1940: De Mayerling à Sarajevo directed by Max Ophüls 1943: Mermoz directed by Louis Cuny 1946: Étrange Destin directed by Louis Cuny 1951: L'Étrange Madame X directed by Jean Grémillon 1953: Anastasia, for UK TV BBC Sunday Night Theatre 1956: Anastasia directed by Anatole Litvak 1961: Anna Karénine, for TV 1961: Le Procès de Sainte-Thérèse de l'enfant Jésus, for TV 1964: La Nuit de feu, for TV 1967: L'Affaire Lourdes for TV 1967: Il processo di Santa Teresa del bambino Gesù, for Italian TV 1970: Thérèse d'Avila for TV 1970: La Possédée, for TV 1972: L'Image, for TV 1973: Laurette or l'Amour voleur, for TV 1997: Anastasia directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman, after Maurette's play

Books 1939: La Vraie Dame aux Camélias ou l'Amoureuse sans amour, pub. Michel Albin 1951: La Vie Privée de Madame de Pompadour, pub. Hachette 1963: Le Procès de Sainte Thérèse de l'Enfant Jésus, pub. Cerf 1967: Guillaume le conquérant, la vie quotidienne des médecins au temps de Molière la révolution française, co-author, pub. le Cercle Historia (Sceaux)

Birthdate notes Two different birth years, 1903 and 1909, are given by people writing about Maurette.

14 November 1903 Her husband's book about her, written after her death, gives the 1903 birthdate in its title: Marcelle Maurette, ma femme: journal de sa vie, 1903-1972.

14 November 1909 There are several images of official-looking documents, copies of birth and marriage certificates etc., giving her birth year as 1909, on the website of the French Ministry of Culture. 1909 is found in some directories of the "Who's Who" kind, and in other reference books.