Pascale Petit

In the late 1950s, sweet and sexy French actress Pascale Petit (1938) formed serious competition for Brigitte Bardot as the Sex Symbol of French cinema. She appeared in more than fifty films from 1957 to 2001.


Vintage postcard.


Dutch postcard by Takken, Utrecht, no. 4068. Photo: N.V. Standaardfilms, Amsterdam. Pascale Petit in Les Tricheurs / Youthful Sinners (Marcel Carné, 1958).


Dutch postcard by Uitg. Takken, Utrecht, no. AX 4069. Photo: NV Standaardfilms, Amsterdam. Jacques Charrier and Pascale Petit in Les Tricheurs / The Cheaters (Marcel Carné, 1958).


German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/65.


Dutch postcard by Internationale Filmpers, Amsterdam, no. WPS 32, for Song Parade. Pascale Petit in Les Tricheurs / Youthful Sinners (Marcel Carné, 1958).


German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/90. Photo: Sam Lévin.


West German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 3048. Photo: Constantin-Film. Pascale Petit in Julie la rousse / Julie the Redhead (Claude Boissol, 1959). The German title was Rote Haare - freche Lippen.


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. FK 29. Photo: Unifrance / Ufa. Pascale Petit in Faibles femmes / Three Murderesses (Michel Boisrond, 1959).


Yugoslav postcard by Studio Sombor, no. 203.

Seductive femme fatale

Pascale Petit was born as Anne-Marie Petit in Paris, France, in 1938. She had a brother and a sister. Petit spent her childhood and adolescence in Vaires-sur-Marne. Before becoming an actress, she worked as a beautician.

In 1956, married the actor Jacques Portet, from whom she divorced in 1960. She worked at the Carita hair salon, where she was spotted by a client, the actress Françoise Lugagne. Lugagnne was the wife of the director-actor Raymond Rouleau, who was searching for young actresses for his directorial debut, Les Sorcières de Salem / The Crucible.

Petit made her cinema debut in the role of Mary Warren, erstwhile accuser at the Salem witch trials of 1692 and later confessed 'witch', in Les Sorcières de Salem / The Crucible (Raymond Rouleau, 1957), starring Yves Montand and Simone Signoret. Famous author Jean-Paul Sartre wrote the screenplay, based on the play by Arthur Miller.

The following year, she was awarded the Prix Suzanne Bianchetti in 1958 for her role as the servant girl Rosalie in Une Vie / One Life (Alexandre Astruc, 1958), starring Maria Schell and Christian Marquand. Despite never having had any formal acting training, she was awarded the prestigious Prix Suzanne Bianchetti in 1958, presented annually to a promising young French actress.

Then followed her role as a rich, existentialist kid in Les tricheurs / The Cheaters (Marcel Carné, 1958), which made her a star. A scene in which one of her breasts was shown caused a sensation. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "Of the cast, Pascale Petit stands out as a trendy young girl whose willingness to follow the crowd leads to tragedy." Upon the film’s release, she was regarded as one of the most talented actresses of the time, her naturalness and spontaneity setting her apart from the more conventional actresses of the day. Famous French film critic and historian Georges Sadoul even ranked her among the ‘four most gifted actors’ of the era.


West German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-312. Photo: Sam Lévin / Ufa.


German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/44.


German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/89. Photo: Sam Levin.


German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/88. Photo: Sam Lévin.


German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/160. Photo: Fried Agency / Ufa.


French postcard by PSG, no. 33, offered by Corvisart. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1067, offered by Corvisart, Epinal. Photo: Sam Lévin.


French postcard by PSG, no. 70, offered by Corvisart. Photo: Sam Lévin.

German and Italian B pictures

Pascale Petit followed up her success with a title role in the comedy Julie la rousse / Julie the Redhead (Claude Boissol, 1959) opposite Daniel Gélin. Soon, she received more roles as a seductive femme fatale, and for a while, the media compared PP to BB, Brigitte Bardot. She played in such comedies as Faibles femmes / Three Murderesses (Michel Boisrond, 1959) with Alain Delon and Mylène Demongeot, and Une fille pour l'été / A Girl for the Summer (Edouard Molinaro, 1960) opposite Micheline Presle.

In 1959, at the Moscow Film Festival, she met the poet and actor Giani Esposito and later married him during the filming of Une fille pour l'été / A Girl for the Summer (Edouard Molinaro, 1960). She followed him to Italy, where the couple had a daughter, Nathalia, known as Bojidarka, born in 1963.

She portrayed Cleopatra during the internecine struggles with her brother Ptolemy in The Italian-French coproduction Una regina per Cesare / Cléopâtre une reine pour César / A Queen for Caesar (Piero Pierotti, Victor Tourjansky, 1962) with George Ardisson and Gordon Scott. 20th Century Fox bought the rights for the film to keep it out of release lest it compete with their own Cleopatra (y Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1963), starring Elizabeth Taylor.

In the mid-1960s, Pascale Petit’s film career shifted towards B-movies, particularly German and Italian productions, which caused her to fade from the French spotlight. An example is the Spaghetti Western Joe... cercati un posto per morire! / Find a Place to Die (Giuliano Carnimeo, Hugo Fregonese, 1968) with Jeffrey Hunter.

In 1969, she divorced Esposito and married American actor Ray Danton, her co-star of the Spy thriller Corrida pour un espion / Code Name: Jaguar (Maurice Labro, 1965) and the Spanish/West German/Italian Western The Last Mercenary (Mel Welles a.k.a. Dieter Müller, 1968).


Dutch postcard by Takken, Utrecht, no. AX 5153. A gift by Marlene Pilaete.


French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 765. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.


French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 785. Photo: Studio Vauclair.


French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 807. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.


French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 824. Photo: Sam Lévin.


French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 825. Photo: Sam Lévin / Ufa.


French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 825. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.


French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 826. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.


French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 827. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.

A small Dutch gem

In the early 1970s, Pascale Petit tried to make a comeback in France, as well as in the cinema with Chronique d'un Couple... / Chronicle of a Couple (Roger Coggio, 1971), as well as in the music scene with 'Il ne reste que moi...' (What's Left is Me, 1973).

The success was lukewarm, and in the following decades, she worked as a character actress in mostly unremarkable international films and TV productions.

Interesting was a small Dutch gem, A Strange Love Affair (Eric De Kuyper, Paul Verstraten, 1984). Her most recent film is Ville à vendre / City for Sale (Jean-Pierre Mocky, 1992), starring Michel Serrault and Richard Bohringer.

She also appeared in two TV films by Brigitte Bardot's Svengali, Roger Vadim, the mini-series La nouvelle tribu / The New Tribe (1996), and Un coup de baguette magique / A Magic Wand (1997), both featuring Marie-Christine Barrault. In 2022, she published a memoir entitled 'Une vie sans tricher' (A Life without Cheating). In 2023, she appeared in the Netflix series Pax Massilia / Blood Coast (Olivier Marchal, 2023).

Pascale Petit has two daughters, Nathalia, from her marriage to Giani Esposito and Mickaëla (1966), from her relationship with Ray Danton. At the age of twenty, Nathalia became an ambassador for Disney France. Under the name Douchka, she recorded in the 1980s numerous songs for children, inspired by Walt Disney cartoon heroes.


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 1239. Photo: Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof.


Dutch postcard, ca. 1961.


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg, Rotterdam, no. 5543.


West German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 4825. Photo: Fried Agency.


French postcard, no. 7. Photo: Sam Lévin. Mexichrome.


French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 39. Photo: Sam Lévin.


French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 64. Photo: Sam Lévin.


German postcard by Krüger, ca. 1961.


German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/134. Photo: Ufa.


German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK 341. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Gérard Decaux / Ufa.

Sources: I.S. Mowis (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie - Page Now Defunct), AllMovie, Wikipedia (French and English) and IMDb. Thanks to Marlène Pilaete for the additional info!

La Guerre Russo-Japonaise (1904)

The early Franch war film La guerre russo-japonaise / The Russo-Japanese War (1904) by Pathé Frères was filmed by Lucien Nonguet, not in Manchuria but at the Pathé studio in Montreuil. Nonguet specialised in historical reconstructions or reconstructed Actuality films, composed of a series of tableaux, filmed in long shots with no camera movement, and often based on photographs or paintings of the events depicted. In 1905, the Italian publisher Alterocca released four postcards on the film in France.


French postcard by Ed. Alterocca, Terni, no. 4817. Photo: Cinématographes Pathé. Scene from La guerre russo-japonaise (Lucien Noguet, 1904). Caption: The Defence of Port-Arthur.


French postcard by Ed. Alterocca, Terni, no. 4818. Photo: Cinématographes Pathé. Scene from La guerre russo-japonaise (Lucien Noguet, 1904). Caption: Attack of a Fortress.


French postcard by Ed. Alterocca, Terni, no. 4819. Photo: Cinématographes Pathé. Scene from La guerre russo-japonaise (Lucien Nonguet, 1904). Caption: Arrest of a spy.


French postcard by Ed. Alterocca, Terni, no. 4820. Photo: Cinématographes Pathé. Scene from La guerre russo-japonaise (Lucien Nonguet, 1904). Caption: Execution of a spy.


French postcard in the series 'La Guerre Maritime Russo-Japonaise', no. 2. Photo: H. Manuel. The card was mailed in 1906. Caption: Let’s launch our first battleship, ‘The Teacup’; we’ll see if it manages to make it through.


French postcard in the series 'La Guerre Maritime Russo-Japonaise', no. 4. Photo: H. Manuel. The card was mailed in 1906. Caption: He is retreating, glory to the winner Nippon!... To us, Europe, America, China, Korea, and the unknown countries.

The Russo-Japanese War

The Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) was fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan. The war arose from the Japanese Empire’s claims to the Korean Empire and Manchuria. The Russian Empire clung to the ice-free port of Port Arthur on the Gulf of Korea/Yellow Sea, leased from China in 1898 for 25 years and thus connected to the Pacific Ocean, for both its merchant fleet and its navy. Vladivostok was only ice-free in the summer. Japan blockaded, stormed and besieged Port Arthur. The Russians attempted to defend Port Arthur, relieve the siege or break out. The major land battles of the war were fought on the Liaodong Peninsula and near Mukden in Southern Manchuria, with naval battles taking place in the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan. The war was concluded with the Treaty of Portsmouth in 1905, mediated by US President Theodore Roosevelt.

Russia's war effort was funded primarily by France, while for Japan, a major portion of the total cost of the war was covered by money borrowed from the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. While France was Russia's closest ally in the 1890s and early 1900s, it declared that this didn't go for Russia's expansion in the East, so France kept neutral during the war. Instead, the Russian tsar Nicolas II was certain that the German Kaiser Wilhelm II would come to aid, as the latter had been demonising the 'Yellow Peril', but the German help never materialised.

The Russo–Japanese War was covered by dozens of foreign journalists who sent back sketches that were turned into lithographs and other reproducible forms. Propaganda images were circulated by both sides, often in the form of postcards and based on insulting racial stereotypes. These were produced not only by the combatants but also by those from European countries who supported one or the other side or had a commercial or colonial stake in the area. War photographs were also popular, appearing in both the press and in book form. Within the French postcard series on the war, images of the Japanese army were more abundant than those of the Russian side, with photos stemming from the American weekly Colliers.

In the following decades, many films were made about the war. One of the best known is the war drama Port-Arthur / Port Arthur (Nicolas Farkas, 1936) starring Anton Walbrook, Danielle Darrieux and Charles Vanel. The very first film version was also French, La guerre russo-japonaise aka Événements russo-japonais (Lucien Nonguet, 1904). This early silent film was filmed at the Pathé studio in Montreuil. To be faster than the competition, Charles Pathé ordered reconstructions of the events on the basis of what journalists had communicated. No Russian or Japanese soldiers were involved, only local French extras. Sets were approximate, small-sized and partly involved painted backdrops. La guerre russo-japonaise / The Russo-Japanese War (1904) consisted of two series. Part 4 of series 1 was entitled Défense de Port-Artur / The Defence of Port-Arthur. The first series was released from March 1904 onward.

In 1905, the Italian publisher Alterocca released four postcards on the film in France, which are included in this post. Remarkable is that the verso of the cards has no division, while in France, from December 1903 on, postcards had split sections on the verso side. Probably the Italian company adapted this system later.


French or Japanese postcard, mailed from Japan to France. Caption: The Russo-Japanese War.


French postcard. Caption: The Russo-Japanese War. The sailors from the Varyag celebrated their return in St Petersburg.


French postcard. Photo: Rogers. Caption: The Russo-Japanese War. Prince Khilkoff examining the railway works on Lake Baïkal.


French postcard by Colliers Weekly. Caption: The Russo-Japanese War. The Japanese troops and their carriers are crossing the river Yalou.


French postcard by Colliers Weekly. Caption: The Russo-Japanese War. A Japanese artillery canon at Feng-Wang-Cheng.


French postcard by Colliers Weekly. Caption: The Russo-Japanese War. Russian artillery in the hands of the Japanese after the Battle of the Yalou.


French postcard by Colliers Weekly. Caption: The Russo-Japanese War. Japanese camp in the valleys of the Liao.


French postcard by Colliers Weekly. Caption: The Russo-Japanese War. A Japanese soldier dragging his wounded horse during the taking of Kaï-Ping.


French postcard by Colliers Weekly. Caption: The Russo-Japanese War. A Japanese field ambulance. Operating on the wounded. Written and mailed within France, from St. Gengoux, 6 November 1905. The text has nothing to do with the war, but is a plea by a French citizen, Louis Cabours, to his brother to send him a better pair of pants. Louis Cabours is working for a boss who makes wine.


French postcard by Colliers Weekly, no. 4. La Guerre Russo-Japonaise, Colliers Weekly. Caption: Japanese soldiers drawing water for their comrades fighting at Port-Arthur. Written and mailed within France, from St. Gengoux, 28 November 1905. Louis Cabours writes to his brother to tell his parents to hurry up and send him his laundry, and also money for a dentist.


French postcard by Colliers Weekly, no. 7. Caption: The Russo-Japanese War. The Russian scouts on a reconnaissance mission in the mountains of the Yalo(u). These mountains may have been those behind the Yalu River in Korea, which mark the border between China and Korea. The card was written and mailed within France, sent from St. Gengoux, 8 December 1905. Louis Cabours writes to a friend to send him 6 mm bullets, as his boss is going for a hunt in the Charolais region.

Sources: Wikipedia (English, Dutch and French), IMDb and Fondation Seydoux-Pathé (French), with thanks to Jean-Claude Séguin.