Madeleine LeBeau, a French actress who fled Nazi-occupied Europe for Hollywood, where she made the best of a small role as the scorned girlfriend of Humphrey Bogart’s Rick Blaine in Casablanca, died on May 1 in Estepona, Spain. She was widely reported to be 92.
The cause was complications from a broken thigh bone, her stepson, documentary filmmaker and mountaineer Carlo Alberto Pinelli, told the Hollywood Reporter.
LeBeau (sometimes credited as Lebeau) was the last surviving credited cast member of Casablanca (1942), which the American Film Institute lists – after Citizen Kane – as the second greatest movie of all time.
Casablanca was intended as wartime propaganda, but it was also a riveting potboiler of romance and intrigue that won Oscars for best picture, director and screenplay.
The stars were Bogart, as a cynical American who runs a saloon in Morocco, and Ingrid Bergman as an old flame from Paris who turns up and stirs his prewar passion.
The rest of the film was stuffed with first-rate character actors from around the world, including LeBeau’s then husband, Marcel Dalio, as Emil the croupier.