Still Life by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Still Life

Page 104

took a role in Maurice Tourneur's ‘Volpone.’ He was replaced by Gaston Modot. Claude Dauphin was offered the role of the Marquis de la Chesnaye; he refused it and instead acted with Simon in Raymond Bernard's Cavalcade d'amour. Renoir then cast Marcel Dalio as the Marquis. Years later, Dalio asked Renoir why he had been cast after having typically played burlesque or traitorous roles. Renoir told Dalio that he was the opposite of the cliché of what a Marquis was and that Dalio was the only actor he knew that could portray the character's insecurity. Renoir's brother Pierre was cast as Octave, and Carette was cast as Marceau.

François suggested newly famous stage actress Michele Alfa for the role of Christine, and Renoir went with his common-law wife Marguerite and Zwoboda to see her perform in a play. While at the play Renoir noticed Nora Gregor in a box seat in the audience and asked about her during the intermission. He learned that Gregor was the wife of Prince Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg, an Austrian nobleman. Renoir became friends with Gregor and her husband, getting to know them over several dinners in Paris. Starhemberg was forced to resign his leadership role in the Heimwehr; a paramilitary anti-democratic organization, because Gregor was Jewish and he was anti-fascist. When Germany annexed Austria in March 1938 Gregor and Starhemberg fled to France. Renoir said they were "in a state of