Early life
Born Jeanne Roques on February 23, 1889 in Paris, France to music composer and socialism theorist Jacques Roques and painter and feminist Adèle Clémence Porchez.
Musidora began her career in the arts at an early age, writing her first novel at the age of fifteen and acting on the stage with the likes of Colette, one of her lifelong friends. During the very early years of French cinema Musidora began a professional collaboration with the highly successful French film director Louis Feuillade.
Musidora made her film debut in Les miseres de l’aiguille, directed by Raphael Clamour, in January 1914. The film highlights the problems of the urban women in the French working-class and presents a new representation of the female even by the working-class movement in the early 20th century in France.
Adopting the moniker of Musidora (Greek for “gift of the muses”), after the heroine in Théophile Gautier‘s novel Fortunio and affecting a unique vamp persona that would be popularized in the United States by actress Theda Bara at about the same time, Musidora soon found a foothold in the nascent medium of moving pictures.
With her heavily kohled dark eyes, somewhat sinister make-up, pale skin and exotic wardrobes, Musidora quickly became a highly popular and instantly recognizable presence of European cinema.
Rise to Stardom
From 1915 onwards, Musidora began appearing in the successful Feuillade-directed serial Les Vampires as Irma Vep (an anagram of “vampire”), a cabaret singer, opposite Édouard Mathé as crusading journalist Philippe Guerande. Contrary to the title, Les Vampires was not actually about vampires, but about a criminal-gang-run-secret-society inspired by the exploits of the real-life Bonnot Gang. Vep, besides playing a leading role in the Vampires’ crimes, also spends two episodes under the hypnotic control of Moreno, a rival criminal who makes her his lover and induces her to assassinate the Grand Vampire.
The series was an immediate success with French cinema-goers and ran in 10 installments until 1916. After the Les Vampires serial, Musidora starred as adventuress Diana Monti (aka governess “Marie Verdier”) in Judex, another popular Feuillade serial filmed in 1916 but delayed for release until 1917.
Though not intended to be avant-garde, Les Vampires and Judex were lauded by Louis Aragon and Andre Breton in the 1920s for the films’ elements of surprise, fantasy/science fiction, unexpected juxtapositions and visual non sequiturs. Filmmakers Fritz Lang, Luis Buñuel, Georges Franju, Alain Resnais, and Olivier Assayas have cited Les Vampires and Judex as influencing them in their desires to become directors.
At a time when many women in the film industry were confined to acting, Musidora achieved a degree of success as a producer and director. She became a film producer and director under the tutelage of her mentor, Louis Feuillade.
Between the late 1910s and early 1920s, Musidora directed ten films, all of which are lost with the exception of two: 1922’s Soleil et Ombre and 1924’s La Terre des Taureaux, both of which were filmed in Spain.
In Italy, she produced and directed La Flamme Cachee based on the work of her friend Colette. In the same year, she co-wrote (with Colette) and co-directed (with Eugenio Perego) La vagabonda based on Colette‘s novel of the same name.
Personal life
Musidora married Dr. Clément Marot on April 20, 1927. The marriage lasted 15 years and produced one child, Clément Marot Jr. (1928–2010).
Musidora and Clément divorced in 1944.
Later life and death
After her career as an actress faded, Musidora focused on writing and producing. Her last film was an homage to her mentor Feuillade titled La Magique Image in 1950, which she both directed and starred in.
Late in her life, Musidora would occasionally work in the ticket booth of the Cinémathèque Française—few patrons realized that the older woman in the foyer might be starring in the film they were watching.
Musidora died in Paris on December 11, 1957 and was buried in the Cimetière de Bois-le-Roi.
