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Denise Benoit

Biography

Denise Benoît (10 September 1919 – 29 May 1973) was a French actress and singer, active across a wide range of genres on the stage, radio and television. Other members of her family were musicians.

From a family of musicians, she was a daughter, grand-daughter and great-grand-daughter of musicians. Her mother (Léontine Benoît-Granier, died 1957) was a musician and composer who won prizes at the Paris Conservatoire, while her father Henri Benoît was a notable viola player in Paris, who was a member of the Capet Quartet in the 1920s, participating in several of their recordings during that period. Her brother, Jean-Christophe Benoît (born 1925) was a popular and much recorded baritone. Born Denise Marie Armande Frédérique Benoît in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, Denise spent the bulk of her career there, and died in the same city while still active.

Denise Benoît began learning the violin at the age of three from her father, later continuing with her mother. As a young woman, she began her professional life playing in Parisian theatre orchestras; while at the Théâtre Marigny a man looked into the pit and asked her whether she would not prefer to be playing on stage rather below it. Through several theatrical contacts she became the student of Jean Meyer, spent a year the Conservatoire and began her acting career in 1942. Her break-through came with an "unforgettable" portrayal of Natalia Stepenovna in A Marriage Proposal by Tchekhov. Her first role, in Sixième étage, was as a cleaning lady, and this debut tended to type-cast her for some time as servants, concierges and domestics. On screen she became restricted to being a secretary, a domestic and a waitress, and so began to refuse this type of role.

In 1945 while a student of André Brunot at the Conservatoire d'art dramatique in Paris she took part in a televised play by Courteline; at the time she was only recognized as an actress, with her singing career yet to begin. In the 1950s, living in the Boulevard Malesherbes, Paris, already well-known on disc, she had facilities for recording at her apartment.

Léontine, Jean-Christophe and Denise appeared together on record in some of the 'Chants de France' folksong series on Ducretet-Thomson. The extensive series of records of folk songs from around France was the brain-child of her mother Léontine, so it was natural that the family were at the centre of these recordings.

In the 1950s she began a long association with radio broadcasting, which at the time she expressed a preference for, including for ten years on the regular programme of Louis Ducreux. While taking a respite for the birth of her first child in the early 1950s, Joseph Kosma guided her in broadening her song repertoire and wrote a few for her. After this, a career in cabaret began, with appearances at L'Écluse on the Left Bank, and she sang at other venues until the birth of a daughter in 1957.