Petite, seductive French leading lady Corinne Calvet underwent several early career changes before settling on the acting profession. She first studied criminal law at France's renowned Sorbonne, but then turned her attention to interior decoration, specializing in fine arts and antiques.
After studying at the L'Ecole du Cinema in Paris, she made her debut on the stage and also worked as a radio hostess. Small film roles followed.
Corinne was 'discovered' by famous producer Hal B. Wallis, brought to America, and signed to a contract with Paramount in 1947. Her life developed into a decade-long roller-coaster of feuds, lawsuits, publicity stunts, and even an attempted suicide by sleeping pills.
Corinne's Hollywood career got off to a turbulent start, the fiery actress heatedly challenging Wallis over the size of her salary. Despite growing animosity between her and the producer, she was eventually cast in her first Paramount picture, Rope of Sand (1949),a film noir set in South Africa and co-starring Burt Lancaster and Paul Henreid.
The film emphasized Corinne's sultry appeal and her sexy, somewhat husky voice. She played a nightclub singer, which worked well since she could actually sing. The New York Times review (August 4th, 1949) remarked that the cast, though playing somewhat shady characters, were "all products of good acting, and therefore are strangely interesting".
Rope of Sand garnered mostly good reviews and was certainly one of the better roles Corinne was to find in Hollywood. Though she featured opposite a number of big-name stars, such as Danny Kaye and James Cagney, she was largely consigned to be the ornamental French dessert.
Of her part in On the Riviera (1951),Bosley Crowther commented that she was "pretty, but neglected". Corinne (Miss Golden Globe 1952),later gave vent to her frustration at having never been given a proper chance to display her acting range in her 1983 memoir 'Has Corinne Been a Good Girl?'.
The headlines made in her private life often overshadowed her screen career. One highly publicized (and apparently staged) incident had her suing actress Zsa Zsa Gabor over a statement made to, among others, a newspaper columnist, claiming that Corinne's French background was a studio invention.
In another, more bizarre, instance in 1967, her then-boyfriend claimed in court that she had 'used voodoo on him' in order to gain control of his finances. There were also two acrimonious and very public divorces from actors John Bromfield and Jeffrey Stone.
From the mid 1950's, Corinne began to appear in international co-productions, dividing her time between Los Angeles and her lavishly furnished top floor apartment at the Avenue MacMahon, near the Arc de Triomphe, in Paris. After the publication of her memoir in 1983, Corinne retired from acting and re-invented herself as a therapist, specializing in hypnosis.
She settled down in Santa Monica, California, where she died in June 2001.
