Marie Dorval

Marie Dorval (6 January 1798, Lorient, Morbihan – 20 May 1849) was a French actress in the Romantic style.

Early life and first marriage

Marie Thomase Amélie Delauney was born on 6 January 1798 to Marie Bourdais, who was sixteen years old. Her father, Joseph-Charles Delaunay was an actor who happened upon a traveling acting company where he met Marie Boudais, the daughter of the troupe manager. He abandoned his daughter and died of yellow fever on 15 July 1802. Dorval's mother died on 18 February 1818. Dorval met Alain Dorval when she was fifteen years old, and he was thirty-six. The two were married in Vannes on 12 February 1814.

Marie and her mother travelled parts of Brittany and France during the period from 1806 to 1810.

Relationship with George Sand In January 1833, the female writer George Sand met Marie Dorval after the former wrote the actress a letter of appreciation following one of her performances. The two women became involved in an intimate friendship, and were rumored to have become lovers. This has been debated, and never has been verified. which has been quoted repeatedly in years since, sometimes attributed to her and sometimes apocryphally:

Augustin Filon, in 1901, describing the Dark Lady of Shakespeare's sonnets Karl Lagerfeld, legendary fashion designer, describing Anna Piaggi, the influential editor of Vogue Italia Jean Baudrillard, describing the essence of seduction in Fatal Strategies, his 1983 book on the hyperreal