Mireille Balin

Acting

Born July 19, 1909, Monte Carlo, Monaco

Mireille Césarine Balin (born Blanche Mireille Césarine Balin; 20 July 1909, in Monte Carlo – 9 November 1968 in Paris) was a French-Italian actress. Balin was born near Monte Carlo. Her father, Charles Balin, was a French newspaper publisher. Her mother was Italian. Her education came at finishing schools. She was a policewoman in Paris until friends urged her to take a screen test. Balin posed for some advertisements in Paris before she began acting in films. Considered one of the finest actresses of French cinema in the 1930s, she was discredited by her fraternization with the Nazis. During Nazi occupation of France, she became romantically involved with an officer of the Wehrmacht and at the end of war she was imprisoned in Fresnes until January 1945. She retired from film in 1947. Balin arrived in Hollywood in 1937 with a staff of servants and with 28 trunks containing "most of her worldly possessions. During the final 10 years of her life she lived in a "charitable home". Balin died in 1968, aged 59.

Filmography

• 1947La Dernière chevauchée — Louise Valérian
• 1943Malaria
• 1942Gambling Hell — Mireille
• 1942Haut le vent — Gisèle Esteban
• 1942L'assassin a peur la nuit — Lola Gracieuse
• 1942The Trump Card — Bella Score
• 1942The Woman I Loved the Most — Claude's wife
• 1941Fromont Young and Risler Elder — Sidonie Chèbe
• 1940The Siege of the Alcazar — Carmen Herrera
• 1940Threats — Denise
• 1939Cas de conscience
• 1939Gunshot — Countess Vilma Isopolska
• 1939Immediate Call
• 1939Land of Fire — Georgette
• 1938Captain Benoit — Véra Agatcheff
• 1938Golden Venus — Judith
• 1937Lady Killer — Madeleine Courtois, l'aventurière
• 1937Naples Under the Kiss of Fire — Assunta
• 1937Pépé le Moko — Gaby, the Parisian
• 1936Girls of Paris — Gine
• 1936Le Roman d'un spahi — Cora
• 1935Marie des angoisses — Marie
• 1934Si j'étais le patron — Marcelle
• 1934Vive la compagnie — Lilette
• 1934We Found a Naked Woman — Denise
• 1933Don Quixote — The Niece
• 1933Weaker Sex — Nicole
• 1932Vive la classe