Nicole Stéphane (French pronunciation:[nikɔlstefan]; born Baroness Nicole de Rothschild, 27 May 1923 – 13 March 2007) was a French actress, producer and director.
Biography
The elder of the two daughters of Baron James-Henri de Rothschild and his first wife, Claude Dupont, Nicole Stéphane was a member of the Rothschild banking family of France. Her immediate family, however, also was deeply immersed in the arts. Her paternal grandfather, Baron Henri de Rothschild, was a playwright and theatrical producer who wrote under the names Charles des Fontaines and André Pascal and owned Théâtre Antoine and Théâtre Pigalle. Her first cousin Philippine de Rothschild was an actress with the Comédie-Française, using the name Philippine Pascal. And her father's brother, the vintner Philippe de Rothschild, wrote plays, owned theatres and produced films.[1]
Stéphane joined the army during the Second World War, and was briefly imprisoned in Spain in 1942 after crossing the Pyrenées while she was trying to join the Free French. She was also a liaison agent in Germany. As an actress, she is best known for her role in two films by Jean-Pierre Melville, Le Silence de la mer (1949) and Les Enfants terribles (1950). In 1950, Stéphane introduced her cousin (by marriage), Francine Weisweiller, to Jean Cocteau, whom she'd met while acting in Les Enfants terribles. Weisweiller would become a primary patron and close friend of Cocteau's.[2][3]
