Suzanne Bianchetti

Suzanne Bianchetti was born in Paris in 1889. During the First World War she made her cinema debut in the propaganda film La femme française pendant la guerre/The French Woman during the War (Alexandre Devarennes, 1917). She quickly became popular with short silent comedies such as Riquette se marie/Riquette Marries (Alexandre Devarennes, 1918). Her first dramatic role was in La Marseillaise (Henri Desfontaines, 1920) opposite André Nox. During the 1920s she became one of France's most loved and respected actresses, and worked with many of the notables of the silent film era, such as Antonin Artaud and the singer Damia. Her silent films include Flipotte (Jacques de Baroncelli, 1920) starring Gabriel Signoret, based on a novel by Henry Kistemaekers, Jocelyn (Léon Poirier, 1922), the popular serial Les Mystères de Paris/The Mysteries of Paris (Charles Burguet, 1922), Violettes imperials/Imperial Violets (Henry Roussel, 1924) with Raquel Meller, and the American romantic costume comedy-drama Madame Sans-Gêne (Léonce Perret, 1925), a Paramount production starring Gloria Swanson. In 1927, Bianchetti appeared in her two most famous films, as Marie Antoinette in the classic epic Napoléon (Abel Gance, 1927) and as Catherine II in Casanova (Alexandre Volkoff, 1927) featuring Ivan Mozzhukhin. A year later she appeared in another silent classic, Verdun, visions d'histoire/Verdun (Léon Poirier, 1928) as the wife of the French soldier (Albert Préjean).

After the introduction of sound film, Bianchetti could be seen again in re-edited versions with sound-effects of Verdun, visions d'histoire, retitled as Verdun, souvenirs d'histoire (1931), Violettes impériales (1932) and Napoléon as Napoléon Bonaparte (1935). Her final film was L'Appel du Silence/The Call (Leon Poirier, 1936), based on the life of Charles de Foucauld (Jean Yonnel). She died in 1936 in Paris at the age of 47. She had been married to writer and actor René Jeanne who served as the director of L'Etablissement Cinématographique des Armées. A year after her death, her husband created an award in her memory to be given annually to the most promising young actress of the year. It was given for the first time in 1937 to Junie Astor for her performance in Club de femmes. The award comes in the form of a medallion engraved with Suzanne Bianchetti's image. Since its inception, the Prix Suzanne Bianchetti has been awarded to many of the greatest names in French cinema who went on to national and international success. Among the winners are Micheline Presle, Simone Signoret, Marina Vlady, Annie Girardot, Pascale Petit, Isabelle Adjani, Isabelle Huppert, Juliette Binoche, Audrey Tautou and Belgian actress Pauline Étienne.