French postcard by PC. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris.
French postcard by S.I.P., 59e Série, no. 14. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris.
French postcard by S.I.P., no. 3. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris.
A reckless car driver
Andrée Mégard was born Marie Adélaïde Alexandrine Chamonal in 1869 in Saint-Amour, in the Jura Mountains. She was the daughter of Jules Chamonal and Marie Rose Florentine Mégard. Her parents were 'well-off peasants' who apprenticed her to an aunt who ran a dry good store.
Andrée ran away from the aunt at fifteen, and landed alone in Paris. She worked in the Printemps department store, gluing labels. As a young woman, Mégard worked as an artist's model in Paris, especially for the artist Auguste Toulmouche.
Rejected by the Conservatoire, she played in Brussels where she was a pupil of Marie Samary. She was on the Paris stage from 1896 to 1925, appearing in shows including Shakespearean tragedies, comedies, and plays directed by her husband, Firmin Gémier.
She starred in a stage adaptation of 'Anna Karenina' in Paris in 1907. In 1908, she knocked herself unconscious on stage during an emotional scene, and she was also a enthusiastic and reckless car driver, according to a newspaper report in 1909, after she and her sister were injured in a road accident in Brittany.
Mégard played the love interest, Roxane, in a 1913 revival of Edmond Rostand's 'Cyrano de Bergerac', while she was having an affair with Rostand himself.
French postcard in the Collection artistique du Vin Désiles by S.I.P. Photo: Reutlinger. Caption: Le vin Desiles? C'est la vie en bouteille et quand vous le buvez, ... vous plein de vers vous réssusciterez! Theophile Gautier. (The Désiles wine? It is life in a bottle and when you drink it, ... you will be full of worms! Theophile Gautier.)
French postcard. Photo: Reutlinger. Andrée Mégard in 'Anna Karénine', performed in 1907 under the direction of Firmin Gémier at the Théâtre Antoine.
Tall, graceful, and distinguished looking
Andrée Mégard appeared in three silent films. First, as the murderous Queen Marguerite de Bourgogne opposite Henry Krauss as Buridan and René Alexandre as Gaultier in the Pathé production La tour de Nesle / The Tower of Nesle (1909) by Albert Capellani, based on the historical novel by Alexandre Dumas.
She acted as 'the wife' in La Petite amie / The Girlfriend (1917) by Marcel Simon opposite Roger Gaillard as the son, Félix Huguenet as the husband and Jane Renouardt as the 'petite amie'.
Her last part was in a second film by Simon, with Jane Renouardt, Roger Gaillard and Félix Huguenet: En quatrième vitesse / In Fourth Gear (Marcel Simon, 1919).
Mégard was considered "tall, graceful, and distinguished looking." Her hairstyles and the designs of her costumes, hats, and gowns were reported in detail in the French and international fashion press, often with photographs or drawings showing their features. She is best known for wearing the designs of the English fashion house Redfern.
In 1928, she took over the management of the Théâtre Antoine and chose René Rocher as director. Andrée Mégard died in 1952 in her birthplace, Saint-Amour in the Jura. She was 86.
French postcard. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris. Caption: Théâtre du Gymnase, Paris. Andrée Mégard performed at the Gymnase between 1897 and 1906 in plays such as 'Les Trois filles de M. Dupont' (1897), 'Mariage bourgeois' (1898), 'Marraine' (1898), 'Le Retour de Jérusalem' (1903), 'Ces messieurs' (1905) and 'Sacha' (1906).
French postcard. Photo: Reutlinger. Caption: Théâtre Antoine. According to the site Les Archives du Spectacle, Andrée Mégard acted in Emile Fabre's play 'La Rabouilleuse' in 1903, but at the Théâtre national de l'Odéon. The play was based on Honoré de Balzac's 'La Comédie humaine'. Firmin Gémier had the male lead in this play as Philippe Bridau, while Mégard played Flore Brazier.
Sources: Les Archives du Spectacle (French), Wikipedia (French and English) and IMDb.
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