| Toqa Hesham |
A French actress, born in Marseille, France, under the name Simone Thérèse Fernande Simon. She has never been married. Her works include Cat People (1942), Mademoiselle Fifi (1944), La Bete Humaine (1938), and Girls Dormitory (1936). Simone was born to a French Jewish engineer father and a pilot in World War II, who died in a German concentration camp, and an Italian housewife mother. She spent her early childhood in Madagascar, where her father ran a graphite mine, and her education was somewhat unstable, as her family moved between Berlin, Budapest, and Turin before settling in 1930 in Paris. Simone began her professional life as a clothing designer, fashion model, dancer, and singer in some musical plays. She debuted in The Unknown Singer (1931) and met director Marc Allegret, who adopted her artistically. She then went to Hollywood to sign a contract with Fox, which presented her with a huge advertising campaign, but she was not proficient. The English language was an obstacle to her, in addition to her limited singing skills, so she returned to France again. After the outbreak of World War II, Simone returned to Hollywood, contracted with RKO Pictures, and played her best role in the horror film Cat People (1942). Throughout the filming of the film, Simone was under FBI surveillance due to her romantic relationship with the spy Dusko Popov. She finally returned to France after the end of the war, liberated France, and presented She made many films until the mid-fifties, in addition to her work in theatre. She died in Paris, on February 22, 2005.
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