Darling Légitimus
Encyclopedia
Darling Légitimus, born Mathilda (Marie-Berthilde) Paruta on 21 November 1907 at Le Carbet
Le Carbet
Le Carbet is a village and commune in the French overseas department of Martinique.-External links:*...

, who died on 7 December 1999 at the age of 92, at Kremlin-Bicetre, was a French actress originated from Carraibes black artistes. She was the mother of Gesip Légitimus (1930–2000) artiste and television producer, Theo Légitimus, actor and elder of a generation of black French artists of which are Pascal Légitimus initially comedian in the "Inconnus" troup, Samuel Légitimus, actor, David Légitimus, French song singer and Billie Richardson, English singer.

Biography

Born on 21 November 1907 at Le Carbet in Martinique
Martinique
Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...

, she spent her early years in Caracas
Caracas
Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...

, Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

. Mathilda Paruta arrived in Paris, France, at age of 16 with the desire to become a dancer. She met Victor-Etienne Legitimus, the son of the government deputy
Deputy (legislator)
A deputy is a legislator in many countries, particularly those with legislatures styled as a 'Chamber of Deputies' or 'National Assembly'.-List of countries:This is an list of countries using the term 'deputy' or one of its cognates....

, Hegesippe Jean Legitimus. She became his life-long companion and bore him 5 children.

Known for a long time as Miss Darling, she later chose to go by the name of Darling Legitimus. She performed as a dancer in the "Revue Nègre" with Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker was an American dancer, singer, and actress who found fame in her adopted homeland of France. She was given such nicknames as the "Bronze Venus", the "Black Pearl", and the "Créole Goddess"....

, and posed for the famous painter Picasso as well as sculptor Paul Belmondo
Paul Belmondo
Paul Alexandre Belmondo is a French racing driver who raced in Formula One for the March and Pacific Racing teams. He is the son of actor Jean-Paul Belmondo and grandson of sculptor Paul Belmondo...

, father of Jean-Paul Belmondo
Jean-Paul Belmondo
Jean-Paul Belmondo is a French actor initially associated with the New Wave of the 1960s.-Career:Born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, west of Paris, Belmondo did not perform well in school, but developed a passion for boxing and football."Did you box professionally very long?" "Not very long...

, the actor.

During the 1930s, Darling wrote, composed and sang numerous Caribbean songs like Biguine
Biguine
Biguine is a style of music that originated in Guadeloupe and Martinique in the 19th century.-History:Two main types of French antillean biguine can be identified based on the instrumentation in contemporary musical practice, which is call the drum biguine and the orchestrated biguine . Each of...

 and Mazurka
Mazurka
The mazurka is a Polish folk dance in triple meter, usually at a lively tempo, and with accent on the third or second beat.-History:The folk origins of the mazurek are two other Polish musical forms—the slow machine...

. She often performed alongside known musicians of the era, like "Pe En Kin Sosso" and his band.

She also performed in plays by Jean Genet
Jean Genet
Jean Genet was a prominent and controversial French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. Early in his life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but later took to writing...

, Les Nègres and Aimé Césaire
Aimé Césaire
Aimé Fernand David Césaire was a French poet, author and politician from Martinique. He was "one of the founders of the négritude movement in Francophone literature".-Student, educator, and poet:...

. She was directed on the big screen by Raymond Rouleau in Les Sorcieres de Salem
Les Sorcières de Salem
This article is about the 1957 film. For the film by Nicholas Hytner, see The Crucible .The Crucible is a 1957 joint Franco-East German film production directed by Raymond Rouleau with a screenplay adapted by Jean-Paul Sartre from the 1953 play The Crucible, by Arthur Miller.-Plot:1692, Salem,...

(The Crucible
The Crucible
The Crucible is a 1952 play by the American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatization of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Province of Massachusetts Bay during 1692 and 1693. Miller wrote the play as an allegory of McCarthyism, when the US government blacklisted accused communists...

) alongside Simone Signoret
Simone Signoret
Simone Signoret was a French cinema actress often hailed as one of France's greatest movie stars. She became the first French person to win an Academy Award, for her role in Room at the Top...

 and Yves Montand
Yves Montand
-Early life:Montand was born Ivo Livi in Monsummano Terme, Italy, the son of poor peasants Giuseppina and Giovanni Livi, a broommaker. Montand's mother was a devout Catholic, while his father held strong Communist beliefs. Because of the Fascist regime in Italy, Montand's family left for France in...

, and Le Salaire de la Peur (Wages of Fear
Wages of Fear
The Wages of Fear is a 1953 French thriller film directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, starring Yves Montand, and based on a 1950 novel by Georges Arnaud...

) by Henri Georges Clouzot, with Sacha Guitry
Sacha Guitry
Alexandre-Pierre Georges Guitry was a French stage actor, film actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright of the Boulevard theatre.- Biography :...

, Jean Claude Brialy and Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci is an Italian film director and screenwriter, whose films include The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor and The Dreamers...

.

In 1983, at the age of 76, she won the Volpi
Volpi
Volpi is a surname of Italian origin, meaning fox. The name refers to:*Alberto Volpi , Italian road bicycle racer*Alfredo Volpi , Italian-Brazilian modernist painter*Giacomo Lauri-Volpi , Italian operatic tenor...

 Cup for the best female interpretation of "The Mostra of Venise", also for her role in Rue Cases-Nègres (Sugar Cane Alley
Sugar Cane Alley
Sugar Cane Alley is a 1983 film directed by Euzhan Palcy. It is set in Martinique in the 1930s, where blacks working sugarcane fields were still treated harshly by the white ruling class...

) directed by her compatriot Euzhan Palcy
Euzhan Palcy
Euzhan Palcy is a film director writer and producer from Martinique, French West Indies. She is notable for being the first black female director produced by a major Hollywood studio , for A Dry White Season; as well as being the only female filmmaker who directed Marlon Brando .- Early life and...

.
During her long life, she was acquainted with a great number of famous actors like Arletty
Arletty
Arletty was a French actress, singer, and fashion model.-Life and career:Arletty was born Léonie Marie Julie Bathiat in Courbevoie , to a working-class family. Her early career was dominated by the music hall, and she later appeared in plays and cabaret. Arletty was a stage performer for ten years...

, Fernandel
Fernandel
Fernand Joseph Désiré Contandin , better known as Fernandel, was a French actor and singer. Born in Marseille, France, he was a comedy star who first gained popularity in French vaudeville, operettas, and music-hall revues...

, Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...

 and Pierre Brasseur
Pierre Brasseur
Pierre Brasseur , born Pierre-Albert Espinasse, was a French actor.He was the son of actor Georges Espinasse and actress Germaine Brasseur while the latter was married to Albert Brasseur. His grandfather, Jules Brasseur, was an actor as well...

. She also took part in numerous ORTF (Office de Radio-diffusion de la Television Française ) productions of which a telefilm by Jean-Christophe Averty Les verts Paturages (The Green Pastures, written by Marc Connelly
Marc Connelly
Marcus Cook Connelly was an American playwright, director, producer, performer, and lyricist. He was a key member of the Algonquin Round Table, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1930.-Biography:...

), was produced.

Death

She died on 7 December 1999 at Kremlin-Bicetre in the Val de Marne near Paris, in France, without any more acting roles after Sugar Cane Alley in spite of hopes of her nomination and rewards.

Public tribute

The writer, Calixthe Beyala
Calixthe Beyala
Calixthe Beyala is a Cameroonian writer who writes in French.She grew up in Douala with her sister. In 1978, She left Cameroon for France...

 and Caribbean actor Luc Saint-Eloy, representatives of "Liberté" collective came up on stage at the César ceremony in 2000, to claim one the largest presence on French Television screens and to pay her a public tribute, since the organizers had "forgotten" to name Darling as one of the previous year great losses.

Cinema

  • 1933 : Bouboule 1er, roi nègre - Léon Mathot
    Léon Mathot
    Léon Mathot was a French film actor and film director best known perhaps for playing Edmond Dantes in The Count of Monte Cristo film serial in 1918....

  • 1937 : Les Perles de la couronne - Sacha Guitry
    Sacha Guitry
    Alexandre-Pierre Georges Guitry was a French stage actor, film actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright of the Boulevard theatre.- Biography :...

     and Christian Jaque
  • 1946 : Un ami viendra ce soir - Raymond Bernard
    Raymond Bernard
    Raymond Bernard was a French filmmaker and related to French playwright father Tristan Bernard and brother to Jean-Jacques Bernard...

  • 1947 : Le Bateau à soupe - Maurice Gleize
  • 1947 : Les Trois cousines - Jacques Daniel-Norman
  • 1950 : Casimir
    Casimir
    Casimir – is an English, French and Latin form of the Polish name Kazimierz, derived from the Slavic elements: kazić "to destroy" and mir "peace, prestige, world". It is originally a warlike name and may mean "someone who destroys opponent's prestige/glory during battle". Also, some researches...

     - Richard Pottier
    Richard Pottier
    Richard Pottier was an Austrian-born French film director. He was born in Budapest in the Austro-Hungarian Empire as Ernst Deutsch.-Selected filmography:* A Rare Bird 1935)* Fanfare of Love * Guilty Melody...

  • 1952 : Le Chemin de Damas - Max Glass
  • 1953 : Le Salaire de la peur (Wages Of Fear
    Wages of Fear
    The Wages of Fear is a 1953 French thriller film directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, starring Yves Montand, and based on a 1950 novel by Georges Arnaud...

    )- Henri-Georges Clouzot
    Henri-Georges Clouzot
    Henri-Georges Clouzot was a French film director, screenwriter and producer. He is best remembered for his work in the thriller film genre, having directed The Wages of Fear and Les Diaboliques, which are critically recognized to be among the greatest films from the 1950s...

  • 1953 : Tourbillon (film) - Alfred Rode
  • 1954 : Flesh and the Woman
    Flesh and the Woman
    Flesh and the Woman is a 1954 French drama film directed by Robert Siodmak. It was entered into the 1954 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Gina Lollobrigida - Sylvia Sorrego / Helena Ricci* Jean-Claude Pascal - Pierre Martel* Arletty - Blanche...

     - Robert Siodmak
    Robert Siodmak
    Robert Siodmak was a German born American film director. He is best remembered as a thriller specialist and for the series of Hollywood film noirs he made in the 1940s.-Early life:...

  • 1955 : Napoléon - Sacha Guitry
    Sacha Guitry
    Alexandre-Pierre Georges Guitry was a French stage actor, film actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright of the Boulevard theatre.- Biography :...

     and Eugène Lourié
    Eugène Lourié
    Eugène Lourié was a French film director, art director, production designer, set designer and screenwriter who was known for his collaborations with Jean Renoir and for his 1950s science fiction movies...

     : the nanny
  • 1955 : Le Port du désir - Edmond T. Gréville
    Edmond T. Gréville
    Edmond T. Gréville was a French film director and screenwriter....

  • 1955 : Un missionnaire - Maurice Cloche
    Maurice Cloche
    Maurice Cloche was a French film director, screenwriter and film producer. His movie Monsieur Vincent won a 1948 Special Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.-External links:...

  • 1957 : Les Sorcières de Salem
    Les Sorcières de Salem
    This article is about the 1957 film. For the film by Nicholas Hytner, see The Crucible .The Crucible is a 1957 joint Franco-East German film production directed by Raymond Rouleau with a screenplay adapted by Jean-Paul Sartre from the 1953 play The Crucible, by Arthur Miller.-Plot:1692, Salem,...

     (The Crucible
    The Crucible
    The Crucible is a 1952 play by the American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatization of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Province of Massachusetts Bay during 1692 and 1693. Miller wrote the play as an allegory of McCarthyism, when the US government blacklisted accused communists...

    )- Raymond Rouleau
  • 1960 : Comment qu'elle est - Bernard Borderie
    Bernard Borderie
    Bernard Borderie , son of Raymond Borderie, one of the producers of Les Enfants du Paradis , was a French film director and screenwriter.-Selected filmography:...

  • 1962 : La Poupée
    La poupée
    La poupée is an opéra comique in a prelude and three acts composed by Edmond Audran with a libretto by Maurice Ordonneau. It opened at the Théâtre de la Gaîté, Montparnasse, Paris on 31 October 1896. Along with Miss Helyett La poupée was one of Audran's late successes. The libretto was based on...

     - Jacques Baratier
    Jacques Baratier
    Jacques Baratier was a French film director and screenwriter. He directed 21 films. His film Goha won the Jury Prize at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival...

  • 1963 : Le Feu follet - Louis Malle
    Louis Malle
    Louis Malle was a French film director, screenwriter, and producer. He worked in both French cinema and Hollywood. His films include Ascenseur pour l'échafaud , Atlantic City , and Au revoir, les enfants .- Early years in France :Malle was born into a wealthy industrialist family in Thumeries,...

  • 1971 : Le Cri du cormoran le soir au-dessus des jonques - Michel Audiard
    Michel Audiard
    Pierre Michel Audiard was a French dialogue writer, screenwriter and film director. He is the father of French film director Jacques Audiard.- 1940 - 1950 :*1949 :** Mission à Tanger of André Hunebelle...

  • 1971 : Églantine - Jean-Claude Brialy : Lolo
  • 1971 : Boulevard du rhum
    Boulevard du Rhum
    Boulevard du Rhum is a 1971 French-Italian-Spanish adventure film directed by Robert Enrico and produced by Alain Poiré. It is based on Jacques Pecheral's novel of the same name...

     - Robert Enrico
    Robert Enrico
    Robert Georgio Enrico was a French film director and scriptwriter.He was born in Liévin, Pas-de-Calais, in the north of France.-Filmography as director:* Fait d'hiver...

  • 1972 : Le Dernier Tango à Paris (Last Tango in Paris
    Last Tango in Paris
    Last Tango in Paris is a 1972 Italian romantic drama film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci which portrays a recent American widower who takes up an anonymous sexual relationship with a young, soon-to-be-married Parisian woman...

     ) de Bernardo Bertolucci
    Bernardo Bertolucci
    Bernardo Bertolucci is an Italian film director and screenwriter, whose films include The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor and The Dreamers...

     : concierge
  • 1973 : La Dernière Bourrée à Paris - Raoul André
    Raoul André
    Raoul André was a French director and screenwriter, He was married to actress Louise Carletti , and he is the father of Ariane Carletti.- Filmography :* 1947 : Le Village de la colère...

  • 1976 : Les vécés étaient fermés de l'intérieur - Patrice Leconte
    Patrice Leconte
    Patrice Leconte is a French film director, actor, comic strip writer, and screenwriter.-Biography:...

  • 1979 : O Madiana - Constant Gros-Dubois : Mme Jonas
  • 1980 : La Bande du Rex -108-13 / Jean-Henri Meunier
  • 1980 : 5 % de risques - Jean Pourtalé
  • 1983 : Rue Cases-Nègres (Sugar Cane Alley
    Sugar Cane Alley
    Sugar Cane Alley is a 1983 film directed by Euzhan Palcy. It is set in Martinique in the 1930s, where blacks working sugarcane fields were still treated harshly by the white ruling class...

    ) - Euzhan Palcy
    Euzhan Palcy
    Euzhan Palcy is a film director writer and producer from Martinique, French West Indies. She is notable for being the first black female director produced by a major Hollywood studio , for A Dry White Season; as well as being the only female filmmaker who directed Marlon Brando .- Early life and...

     : M'Man Tine

Television

  • La Case de l'oncle Tom (Uncle Tom's Cabin
    Uncle Tom's Cabin
    Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman....

    ), written by Harriet Beecher Stowe
    Harriet Beecher Stowe
    Harriet Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was a depiction of life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom...

    (1963) .... Dinah
  • Les Verts Pâturages (The Green Pastures), written by Marc Connelly
    Marc Connelly
    Marcus Cook Connelly was an American playwright, director, producer, performer, and lyricist. He was a key member of the Algonquin Round Table, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1930.-Biography:...

     Christmas 1964*
  • La Redevance du fantôme (1966), adapted from a Henry James
    Henry James
    Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....

    's novel by Jean Gruault
    Jean Gruault
    Jean Gruault , is a French screenwriter and actor. He wrote 25 films between 1960 and 1995. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay for the 1980 film Mon oncle d'Amérique.He was born in Fontenay-sous-Bois, Paris....

     and realised by Robert Enrico
    Robert Enrico
    Robert Georgio Enrico was a French film director and scriptwriter.He was born in Liévin, Pas-de-Calais, in the north of France.-Filmography as director:* Fait d'hiver...

    .... Belinda
  • Noëlle aux quatre vents, (1965 to 1969) realised by Henri Colpi
    Henri Colpi
    Henri Colpi was a French film editor and film director.Colpi directed the 1961 film Une aussi longue absence, which is well-known for sharing the Palme d'Or at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival with Viridiana, which was directed by Luis Buñuel...

    . TV
  • Face aux Lancaster (1971) realised by Adonis Kyrou
    Adonis Kyrou
    Adonis Kyrou was a Greek filmmaker and writer.Residing in France, where he was a critic, filmmaker, and author of L'Âge d'or de la carte postale , Amour - érotisme & cinéma and Le surréalisme au cinéma , the last two published by Eric Losfeld's publishing house Le Terrain Vague.He was a...

     TV
  • François Gaillard : La Vie des autres - France, by Jacques Ertaud  (1971) TV .... Datifa (segment Pierre)

Theater

  • Les Sorcières de Salem
    Les Sorcières de Salem
    This article is about the 1957 film. For the film by Nicholas Hytner, see The Crucible .The Crucible is a 1957 joint Franco-East German film production directed by Raymond Rouleau with a screenplay adapted by Jean-Paul Sartre from the 1953 play The Crucible, by Arthur Miller.-Plot:1692, Salem,...

     d'Arthur Miller
    Arthur Miller
    Arthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All My Sons , Death of a Salesman , The Crucible , and A View from the Bridge .Miller was often in the public eye,...

    , by Raymond Rouleau, in Sarah Bernhardt
    Sarah Bernhardt
    Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...

     Theater
  • La Tragédie du Roi Christophe : created the 4th August 1964 played in the Salzbourg festival, in France the next year, in Odeon
    Odeon
    Odea, Odeon, or Odeum may refer to:* Odeon , ancient Greek and Roman buildings built for singing exercises, musical shows and poetry competitions-Modern era:* Cineplex Odeon, North America...

     theater, in Paris, by the Dramatic Art Company: Europa Studio. it was a succesa in Berlin, Bruxelles, and the "Biennale of Venise", in the Festival Mondial des Arts Nègres (World Festival of Black Art ) à Dakar
    Dakar
    Dakar is the capital city and largest city of Senegal. It is located on the Cap-Vert Peninsula on the Atlantic coast and is the westernmost city on the African mainland...

    , for the international exposition of Montreal
    Montreal
    Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

    , in Yougoslavia and in "Piccolo Teatro" of Milan.
  • Une saison au Congo, created on 4 October 1967 in" théâtre de l'Est Parisien" by Serreau-Perinetti company.
  • Équateur Funambule, juillet 1975, in municipal theater of Fort-de-France
    Fort-de-France
    Fort-de-France is the capital of France's Caribbean overseas department of Martinique. It is also one of the major cities in the Caribbean. Exports include sugar, rum, tinned fruit, and cacao.-Geography:...

     in Martinique
    Martinique
    Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...

    .
  • À la rencontre du petit matin, March 1976, filmed in Guadeloupe
    Guadeloupe
    Guadeloupe is an archipelago located in the Leeward Islands, in the Lesser Antilles, with a land area of 1,628 square kilometres and a population of 400,000. It is the first overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. As with the other overseas departments, Guadeloupe...

     and in Martinique. November 1976, the "Nouveau Carré" Sylvia Montfort. May 1976, "Ciné royal" in Boulogne-Billancourt. February 1977,in Vesinet (near Paris). December 1990, Biennale of Dakar (Senegal) 1st part of "Aventure ambiguë" filmed in Senegal
    Senegal
    Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...

     for Memory of South.
  • Gouverneur de la rosée written in 1944, by Jacques Roumain
    Jacques Roumain
    Jacques Roumain was a Haitian writer, politician, and advocate of Communism. He is considered one of the most prominent figures in Haitian literature. Although poorly known in the English-speaking world, Roumain has significant following in Europe, and is renowned in the Caribbean and Latin America...

    , paru en 1944, adaptated for the "Théâtre Noir" (Black Theater), Paris, 1975.
  • Vous ne l'emporterez pas avec vous (1978) de Moss Hart
    Moss Hart
    Moss Hart was an American playwright and theatre director, best known for his interpretations of musical theater on Broadway.-Early years:...

     et George S. Kaufman
    George S. Kaufman
    George Simon Kaufman was an American playwright, theatre director and producer, humorist, and drama critic. In addition to comedies and political satire, he wrote several musicals, notably for the Marx Brothers...

    , mise en scène et réalisation Jean-Luc Moreau et Pierre Sabbagh
    Pierre Sabbagh
    Pierre Sabbagh was a major personality in French television, as a journalist, producer and director.Pierre Alain Sabbagh was born in Lannion and died in Paris...

     (Au théâtre ce soir) ... Rébad
  • Le Diable aux collants verts
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