Actress. She is remembered as a star of the French Belle Epoque. Born Emile Cecile Seurre, she took to the stage early and in 1903 gained a place at the Comedie-Francais where she had a strong following and was particularly noted as the lead of Moliere’s “Celimene”. Cecile was known for over-playing her lines, a convention later critisized but not uncommon at the time. She performed on both sides of the Atlantic and was long engaged to wealthy American Whitney Warren; her surprise marriage to the somewhat older Count de Segur occasioned considerable negative comment and though the couple only stayed together briefly they never divorced, leaving Cecile a “Countess” all her days. In 1933 she fell down stairs at the Casino de Paris and her simple remark “Have I gone down well?” was widely quoted; she made a few appearances on the silver screen, taking part in two 1909 shorts and later being seen in 1937’s “The Pearls of the Crown” and in the 1941 “Small Kidneys”. In 1950 Cecile underwent a religious conversion, took monastic vows, and spent much of the remainder of her life in prayer and study. Some of her later films have been preserved. (bio by: Bob Hufford)