In
Pouic-Pouic
she was making "
burnt and uncooked pancakes
" for de Funès and his guests.
With her drive, this way of saying enormous nonsense with a disarming naturalness, this sense of humor which belonged only to her, Jacqueline Maillan burst the screen.
The actress, dear to the hearts of the French, who have not forgotten her extraordinary vis comica, would have celebrated her hundredth birthday today, January 11.
In tribute to her talent,
Le Figaro looks
back on a unique career that will make her the queen of boulevard theater and the first great female figure of humor on television.
Little Jacqueline was born on January 11, 1923 in Burgundy.
This daughter of a Ponts et Chaussées engineer gets bored very quickly in class.
But she has a rare gift: she knows how to make her classmates laugh.
Driven by this vocation, she will later take theater lessons after having prepared a training as a nursery nurse.
Read alsoThe Eye of INA: Jacqueline Maillan or the story of Potiche
In 1948, she made her theater debut in
Les Boulingrin
, a play by Courteline.
After playing several plays (
Le Médecin spite lui
by Molière,
Léonie est en avant
by Feydeau...), Robert Dhéry asked him to play a director of shows, Madame Maillan!, in
Ah!
les belles bacchantes
, a creation of the Branquignols troupe.
After appearances, sometimes striking, under the direction of Sacha Guitry (
If Versailles was told
to me in 1954), Gilles Grangier (
Archimède the tramp
in 1959), his talent exploded in the famous
Pouic-Pouic
by Jean Girault in 1963. Here, with Louis de Funès, whose crazy wife she plays, she will compete in pranks.
The queen of the boulevard
"
La Maillan
", as we say the Callas, now became the queen of laughter in France in the 60s and 70s. On stage, she proved irresistible in two plays,
Folle Amanda
and
Potiche
, directed by her friend Pierre Mondy .
On television, she thrills viewers in a stuck-up yet cheeky bourgeois composition.
The Speaker
remains fifty years after a sketch to see and see again.
Very busy on the trestles, Jacqueline Maillan has little time to devote to the cinema.
Yet the iconoclast and talented Jean-Pierre Mocky thinks of her no less than five times for quirky films of which he has the secret:
Is there a Frenchman in the room?
,
A Night at the National Assembly
,
The Truth that Kills
,
City for Sale
,
The Seasons of Pleasure.
In 1983, the Splendid gave her the role of the patriot singer Héléna Bourdelle in
Papy fait de la resistance
.
Once again with this new generation of comedians represented by Thierry Lhermitte, Christian Clavier, Roland Giraud, Gérard Jugnot, Josiane Balasko..., she shows off all her talent.
By the effect of a curious paradox, this born comic was drawn to tragedy.
At the end of her career, she succeeded in working with Patrice Chéreau in the play
Le Retour au désert
.
After half a century, La Maillan finally proved that she was also a great tragedian.
