RARE VINTAGE POSTER OF GESMAR FOR A GREAT ART DECO PERIOD FOR ANNEES FOLLES

Élisa took the name Fournier when her mother Elisa Marie Louise Berthelot married Marc Fournier in 1904.

Andrée Spinelly made her debut in May 1905, in Les Petites Laripette, a comic operetta by Paul Morize and Henry Vernel, where she was noticed: “Miss Andrée Spinelly, a young artist of sixteen, has just revealed herself to be a very skilful actress in Les Petites Laripette, the current success of Parisiana”.

Around 1910, she regularly starred on stage in “light comedies and revues”.

She is at the origin of the career of Charles Gesmar, who designed her costumes from 1915 - when he was only fifteen years old - then, in 1917 and 1922, posters representing her. At the same time, she began an affair with Raimu, whom she played alongside her, notably in Plus ça change! by Rip (1915) and in L'École des cocottes (1920).

Its charm is celebrated by critics: “What attraction our stars have over the whole world! Spinelly's little nose is even more important than Cleopatra's. What shall we say of his legs, famous jewels where, said a critic, there is more spirit than in a play by Voltaire”A.

During the 1930s, she appeared in a few films. It was perhaps her affair with the novelist Pierre Benoit, met during the film adaptation of La Châtelaine du Liban, which led her to retire to the Pyrénées-Atlantiques in 1948.

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