Denise Darcel Movies and Career Information

Denise Darcel (born 8 September 1925) is a retired French actress who made a few films in Hollywood. Born as Denise Billecard in Paris, she was college educated. According to one of her friends who she met in Paris during WWII, she was a passenger in an L-5 Stinson light observation aircraft on VJ Day (8/14/1945) to see the celebration from the air. The pilot, James Helinger Sr., a US Army Air Corps glider pilot (the friend) was at the controls, while they flew under several bridges along the Seine and finally, under the Eiffel Tower, with the crowds below. She was a cabaret singer in Paris after World War II before being spotted by Hollywood. Denise came to the United States in 1947 and became an American citizen in 1952. Her first film appearance of note was in Battleground (1949), where she was the only adult female. She appeared on Broadway in the musical Pardon Our French in 1950. She made quite an impression in Tarzan and the Slave Girl (1950) opposite Lex Barker, then co-starred with Robert Taylor in Westward the Women (1952) and Glenn Ford in Young Man with Ideas (1952). In 1953, she was seen in the swimming musical Dangerous When Wet, which starred Esther Williams (1953).