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Simone Simon
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Simone Simon (April 23, 1910 – February 22, 2005) was a French actress and former fashion designer and model who was brought to Hollywood by RKO studio head Darryl Zanuck. She played Irena Dubrovna, a Serbian-born fashion artist who believes she is a were-panther and will turn into one of the Cat People (1942) if sexually aroused. She reprised the role as a ghost in Curse of the Cat People (1944) and played Satan’s sexy seductress in All That Money Can Buy (aka The Devil and Daniel Webster, 1941). Her last film was in 1973.
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Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon) is a young, Serbian artist living in New York City. When she meets American Oliver Reed (Kent Smith), she falls in love and gets married. But their union hits the rocks when she becomes consumed with the belief that she is the victim of a curse. According to Irena, the curse will make her turn into a deadly panther the minute she becomes emotionally aroused. In an effort to fix their problems, Oliver seeks psychiatric counseling for his beautiful and tormented young bride. But talking about her problems may only make them worse.
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French actress Simone Simon made her American film debut in Girls' Dormitory. Simon portrays a twentyish student in a Swiss private school, harboring a secret passion for headmaster Herbert Marshall. For her own amusement, Simon writes an intense love letter to an imaginary beau; the letter falls in the hands of two snoopy teachers, who suspect the worst. Running away from her accusers, Simone has a chance meeting with Marshall, who reveals that he is in love with her. The official studio synopsis for Girl's Dormitory states that Simone nobly steps aside to allow a middle-aged teacher (Ruth Chatterton) to marry Marshall, but in the film itself Simon ends up with Marshall after all. The synopsis barely mentions Tyrone Power, appearing in his first film for 20th Century-Fox.
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Irena (Simone Simon), a Serbian-born artist living in New York, is haunted by the seemingly-irrational fear that she is a descendant of a race of cat-women. A ship designer, Oliver Reed (Kent Smith), falls in love with the girl and tries to convince her that her feline instincts are no more than a slight mental aberration. Unfortunately, his efforts have little effect. So he enlists the aid of a fashionable psychiatrist, Dr Judd (Tom Conway).
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Simone Simon was originally brought to the United States to repeat her French ingenue roles. Even though a talented actress, she never achieved any level of popularity with American audiences. Twentieth Century-Fox even attempted to promote her as a singing star in Love and Hisses and Josette, but her weak voice undid that strategy. Her Hollywood films are mostly forgotten except for the quartet she made at RKO.
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Simone Simon, the beautiful French actress best known to American audiences for her haunting role in the 1942 RKO horror film "Cat People," died on Feb. 22 in Paris. She was 93.
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Simone Simon