Madeleine Béjart

Madeleine Béjart ( born January 8, 1618 Paris, † February 17, 1672 ibid ) was a French actress who has entered into a long-term companion of the actor, theater director and playwright Molière in the history of the French theater.

Life

It belonged to a Parisian family of actors on to the next to her father Joseph († 1643) and her even her brothers Joseph ( 1616-1659 ) and Louis ( 1630-1678 ), her sister Geneviève ( 1624-1675 ) and her youngest sister, or daughter Armande (1642-1700) included.

According to statements by contemporaries she was a talented actress and a good-looking, vital and very versatile person. With over 20 she got an illegitimate daughter of a protector of the family, the Duc ( = Duke ) de Modène. If also Armande was her daughter, the name of their father were apparently not recorded.

1642 Madeleine learned a few years younger lawyers and theater fool of middle-class family know, Jean -Baptiste Poquelin. They confirmed his passion for the theater and opened in 1644 with him, who renamed in Molière, a theater named L' illustrious Théâtre. Her relationship with her ​​partner seems at least initially, to have been close enough that he could be suspected later, father of Armande to be (see above).

As the Illustre Théâtre already went bankrupt in 1645, Madeleine merged with Molière, her brother Joseph and her sister Geneviève in the Force of the actor and theater director Du Fresne, who went about mostly in southern France.

In 1658 they came together with the troupe, which has since been performed by Molière, back to Paris. They took part in the rise of force to Troupe du roi ( the king's troops ) and the development of Molière to recognized, but also be fine Deten theater director and author. Until her death she remained one of its main actresses and caregivers.

• Theater actor
• Frenchman
• Molière
• Person (Paris)
• Born in 1618
• Died in 1672
• Woman