1-629-866 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Simone Simon (1910-2005), French actress, c1930s-c1940s. Simon made her screen debut in Le Chanteur Inconnu (The Unknown Singer, 1931) and quickly established herself as one of France's most successful film actresses. After seeing her in Lac Aux Dames (Ladies' Lake, 1934), Darryl F. Zanuck took her to Hollywood in 1936 with a widespread publicity campaign. However her films for 20th Century Fox were only moderately successful and she returned, dissatisfied, to France in 1938. With the outbreak of World War II she returned to Hollywood and RKO Studios where she achieved her greatest successes in English language cinema with The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941) and the horror films Cat People (1942) and The Curse of the Cat People (1944). Unfortunately, these films did not lead to greater success and she languished in mediocre films until the end of the war.