Joyeux, Odette

(1914-2000)

   Actress and screenwriter. Odette Joyeux began her career as an actress in the early 1930s. She had smaller roles in films such as Charles de Rochefort's Le Secret du docteur (1930) and Jean Tarride's Le Chine Jaune (1932), before Jean Choux cast her in his film Jean de la lune (1932). Subsequently, Joyeux appeared in Marc Allégret's Lac aux dames (1934) and Gaston Roudès Le Chant de l'amour (1935).

   In 1935, Joyeux was cast in Louis Jouvet's production of Jean Giradoux's play Intermezzo. It was during her performance in the play that Joyeaux met Pierre Brasseur, whom she would later marry. Brasseur went on to cast her in a play of his own, and the two appeared together in Max Neufeld's Valse éternelle (1936), Maurice Cammage's Une femme qui se partage (1936), and Maurice de Canonge's Grisou (1938). During the same period, Joyeux also appeared in Marie Epstein and Jean Benoît-Lévy's Hélène (1936) and Altitude 3,200 (1938) and Choux's La Glu (1936).

   Joyeux went on to appear in several other films during the 1930s and 1940s, including Claude Autant-Lara's Le Mariage de Chiffon (1942), Lettres d'amour (1942), and Sylvie et le fantôme (1946), Serge de Poligny's Le Baron fantôme (1943), Allégret's Les Petites du quai aux fleurs (1944), Jean-Paul Paulin's L'Échec au roy (1945), Gilles Grangier's Leçon de conduite (1946), Jean-Paul Le Chanois's Messieurs Ludovic (1946), Edmond T. Greville's Pour une nuit d'amour (1947), René Le Henaff's Scandale (1948), Maurice de Canonge's Dernière heure, edition spéciale (1949), Max Ophuls's La Ronde (1950), and Sacha Guitry's Si Paris nous était conté (1955). Le Mariage de Chiffon remains probably Joyeux's best-known role, although it is not clear it was her best role, due to her presence in a number of important films, particularly those by independent directors.

   In addition to her contributions as an actress, Joyeux also worked as a screenwriter. Her primary contributions were to television in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, but she did work on films such as Pierre Gaspard-Huit's La Mariée est trop belle (1956), Allegret's L'Amour est en jeu (1957) and Sois belle et tais-toi (1958), and Philippe Agostini's Rencontres (1962). Joyeux is also the mother of the actor Claude Brasseur.

   Historical Dictionary of French Cinema by Dayna Oscherwitz & Mary Ellen Higgins