Alice Sapritch

Alice Sapritch was an actress who knew she was not attractive and decided to stress that rather than hide it, turning her looks into part of her comedy. She never expected to be the romantic lead, and she specialized in two types: obnoxious monsters and foolish eccentrics. She was Folcoche in the television production Vipère au poing, and at twenty-three she played Hamlet's mother. Gérard Oury then handed her the Queen of Spain's duenna in Delusions of Grandeur (1971), an ugly woman who performed a comic striptease. She also took the title role in the television film Mère russe. She wished that Bergman, Schlöndorff or Herzog had directed her, but mostly worked on inept French comedies for directors such as Philippe Clair and Michel Gérard; one exception was Aunt Elizabeth in Téchiné's Les soeurs Brontë in 1978. Her television and stage work was better than her screen roles.