Claire Maurier

Claire Maurier — Biography

Born Odette-Michelle-Suzanne Agramon in Céret on 27 March 1929, Claire Maurier was a French film, stage and television actress who died on 3 May 2026 in Strenquels at the age of 97. Trained at the Cours Simon, she began her career in small film roles in the late 1940s and went on to appear in more than ninety films between 1947 and 2013, alongside stage work that continued from the 1950s into the 2010s. Her first major role came as Gilberte Doinel, the mother of the young protagonist in François Truffaut's The 400 Blows; she went on to play the bigamist wife Christiane Colombey in La Cuisine au beurre (1963) and Simone in La Cage aux Folles (1978). She was nominated for the César Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as the seductive Madeleine in A Bad Son (1981). International recognition followed in 2001, when she played Madame Suzanne, owner of the café where the title character works in Amélie, a film that won four César Awards and earned five Oscar nominations. She later starred in the television series Faites comme chez vous! (2005) and played Gérard Depardieu's neglectful mother in My Afternoons with Margueritte (2010).