Noëlle Adam

Beautiful Noëlle Adam (1933) was a French ballet dancer and actress. She frequently co-starred with comic genius Louis De Funès, and later with her husband, Serge Reggiani.


French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 732. Photo: Sam Lévin.


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, offered by Les Carbones Korès "Carboplane", no. 921. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Beat Girl

Huguette Noëlle Adam was born in La Rochelle, France in 1933. She started out as a ballerina, and has been dancing since age 8.

In 1957, she made her film debut in the Louis de Funès comedy Comme un cheveu sur la soupe/Crazy in the Noodle (Maurice Régamey, 1957).

The following year, she played the female lead in another Louis de Funès farce, Ni vu, ni connu/Neither Seen Nor Recognized (Yves Robert, 1958).

In 1960, she married Sydney Chaplin. That year, she played a lead role in the British cult film Beat Girl (Edmond T. Gréville, 1960) opposite David Farrar and Christopher Lee. In Italy she appeared with Donald O’Connor in the fantasy Le meraviglie di Aladino/The Wonders of Aladdin (Mario Bava, Henry Levin, 1961).

In 1962, Noëlle was cast as Jeannette, a photographer's assistant, in the musical 'No Strings'. Richard Rodgers actually had the part largely rewritten once he had seen Noëlle. She had never sung before so he had her take singing lessons. While she was appearing in 'No Strings', her husband was at the same time appearing just down the street in 'Subways are for Sleeping'.


French playing card. Photo: Sam Lévin.


French postcard by St. Anne, Marseille. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Reggiani

In 1968, Noëlle Adam was back in France and played the mother of Josée (Elisabeth Wiener) in La prisonnière (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1968) with Laurent Terzieff.

She co-starred again with Louis de Funès in L’homme d’Orchestre/The One Man Band (Serge Korber, 1970).

She played a supporting part in L'imprécateur/The Accuser (Jean Louis Bertucelli, 1977).

For more than thirty years she was the companion of Serge Reggiani. With him, she appeared in Reggiani’s son Simon’s film De force avec d'autres/Forced to Be with Others (Simon Reggiani, 1993).

Her last film role was in the short mystery Plus fort que tout/Stronger than any (Hugues Deniset, 1999), in which she again co-starred with Serge Reggiani. Reggiani and Adam eventually married in 2003, a year before his death.


Scene from L’homme d’Orchestre/The One Man Band (Serge Korber, 1970). Source: Succubian (YouTube).

Sources: Wikipedia (French), and IMDb.