# Capucine
**Capucine** was the stage name of Germaine Hélène Irène Lefebvre (6 January 1928, Saint-Raphaël, France – 17 March 1990, Lausanne, Switzerland), a [French fashion](https://www.edgepedia.org/french-fashion) model and film actress best known for playing [Inspector Clouseau](https://www.edgepedia.org/inspector-clouseau)'s wife in *The Pink Panther* (1964) and for her comedic roles opposite [Peter Sellers](https://www.edgepedia.org/peter-sellers) in *What's New Pussycat?* (1965).[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001010/bio/) Her professional name, pronounced "Kap-oo-seen," is the French word for the nasturtium flower.[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001010/bio/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Germaine Hélène Irène Lefebvre; born 6 January 1928 in Saint-Raphaël, Var, France[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001010/bio/) |
| Death | 17 March 1990, Lausanne, Switzerland; suicide by jumping from her eighth-floor apartment[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001010/bio/) |
| Modeling career | Fashion model for Christian Dior and Givenchy in Paris; discovered by a photographer at 17 while riding in an open carriage[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/509374/capucine-profile) |
| Hollywood entry | Discovered by producer Charles K. Feldman in 1957; studied acting under Gregory Ratoff; signed by Columbia in 1958[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001010/bio/) |
| Signature roles | Simone Clouseau in *The Pink Panther* (1964); Renée Lefèbvre in *What's New Pussycat?* (1965)[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/PersonDetails/783) |
| Film debut | *Rendez-vous de juillet* (1949)[4](https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/capucine-1931-1990) |
| Marriage | Pierre Trabaud, 1950, divorced the same year; no children[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001010/bio/) |
## Name and disputed birth details
Most film references give her birth date as 6 January 1928, but the place and year vary across sources. IMDb and the [Turner Classic Movies](https://www.edgepedia.org/turner-classic-movies) profile place her birth in Saint-Raphaël, Var, in 1928.[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001010/bio/) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/509374/capucine-profile) AlloCiné lists Paris as the birthplace with the same date.[5](https://www.allocine.fr/personne/fichepersonne_gen_cpersonne%3D5581.html) The *Dictionary of Women Worldwide* gives 6 January 1931 in Toulon,[4](https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/capucine-1931-1990) and her New York Times obituary, carried by the Roanoke Times, gives 6 January 1933 in Toulon.[6](https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/ROA-Times/issues/1990/rt9003/900321/03212325.htm) The age at death follows from these choices: obituaries in the Los Angeles Times, UPI, and the Washington Post describe her as 57,[7](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-03-21-mn-453-story.html) • [8](https://www.upi.com/amp/Archives/1990/03/20/Film-actress-Capucine-jumps-to-death/2148637909200/) while IMDb and AlloCiné state she was 62.[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001010/bio/) • [5](https://www.allocine.fr/personne/fichepersonne_gen_cpersonne%3D5581.html) A 1960 interview she gave to the Los Angeles Times is the source for her own account that she took her professional name from the French word for the nasturtium flower.[7](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-03-21-mn-453-story.html)
## Modeling and entry into film
Capucine came from what the TCM profile describes as a middle-class family that wanted her to be a schoolteacher; she worked briefly in a bank before a photographer discovered her at 17 in Paris.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/509374/capucine-profile) She became a fashion model for [Christian Dior](https://www.edgepedia.org/christian-dior) and Givenchy and adopted the single-word stage name during her modeling years.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/509374/capucine-profile) In 1952 she took a two-week job modeling clothes in fashion shows aboard a French cruise ship, sharing a cabin with a 17-year-old chorus dancer, [Brigitte Bardot](https://www.edgepedia.org/brigitte-bardot).[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001010/bio/)
Her film debut came in Jacques Becker's *Rendez-vous de juillet* (1949),[4](https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/capucine-1931-1990) and she met the actor Pierre Trabaud, whom she married and divorced in 1950, on that production.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/509374/capucine-profile) In 1957, while working as a high-fashion model for Givenchy, she was discovered by the producer Charles K. Feldman, who brought her to Hollywood to study acting under Gregory Ratoff; Columbia put her under contract in 1958.[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001010/bio/)
## Hollywood career
Her first leading part was as Princess Carolyne in *Song Without End* (1960), a [Franz Liszt](https://www.edgepedia.org/franz-liszt) biography directed by Charles Vidor and [George Cukor](https://www.edgepedia.org/george-cukor), in which [Dirk Bogarde](https://www.edgepedia.org/dirk-bogarde) played the composer.[7](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-03-21-mn-453-story.html) Cukor once said of her, "The camera has a love affair with her face."[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/509374/capucine-profile) Though reviews of the film were unremarkable, moviegoers responded to her apparent coldness before the camera, and she was briefly proclaimed a Garbo-style star.[7](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-03-21-mn-453-story.html)
Through the early and mid-1960s she made a run of American pictures: *North to Alaska* (1960), *Walk on the Wild Side* (1962), *The Lion* (1962), *The 7th Dawn* (1964), *The Pink Panther* (1964), *What's New Pussycat?* (1965), and *The Honey Pot* (1967).[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/PersonDetails/783) Two of these, *The Lion* and *The 7th Dawn*, co-starred [William Holden](https://www.edgepedia.org/william-holden), with whom she had a two-year affair; when Holden died in 1981 he left her $50,000 in his will.[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001010/bio/) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/509374/capucine-profile)
**The Pink Panther and comedy.** [Blake Edwards](https://www.edgepedia.org/blake-edwards)'s *The Pink Panther* was intended as a starring vehicle for [David Niven](https://www.edgepedia.org/david-niven), but Peter Sellers's Inspector Clouseau took over the film and launched the series.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/509374/capucine-profile) Capucine played Simone Clouseau, the inspector's wife.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/PersonDetails/783) The Los Angeles Times obituary described her performance as "hilariously noncommittal" as Sellers made unsuccessful attempts to seduce his own wife on screen.[7](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-03-21-mn-453-story.html) A 1965 *Time* profile argued that her comic effect came from carrying her haute couture hauteur onto the screen and playing her glacial poise for laughs.[9](https://time.com/archive/6833409/movies-the-hottest-icicle/) In *What's New Pussycat?* (1965), written by [Woody Allen](https://www.edgepedia.org/woody-allen) and directed by Clive Donner, she played a character named Renée Lefèbvre, her real surname.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/PersonDetails/783) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/509374/capucine-profile)
## Later career in Europe
She moved from Hollywood to a penthouse apartment in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1962 and worked mostly in European productions thereafter.[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001010/bio/) [Federico Fellini](https://www.edgepedia.org/federico-fellini) cast her in *Satyricon* (1969), her last film of note in the 1960s.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/509374/capucine-profile) Through the 1970s she appeared in European films including Sergio Corbucci's *Bluff* (1976) and Philippe de Broca's *L'Incorrigible* (1975).[10](https://cinema-francais.fr/les_actrices/actrices_C/capucine.htm) She returned to the Pink Panther franchise twice, as Lady Litton in *Trail of the Pink Panther* (1982) and *Curse of the Pink Panther* (1983).[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/PersonDetails/783) On American television she appeared in *Martin Eden* and the miniseries *Sins* with [Joan Collins](https://www.edgepedia.org/joan-collins), and later in the French production *Quartier Negre*.[7](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-03-21-mn-453-story.html)
## Personal life and death
Capucine was a longtime friend of Audrey Hepburn; the two met while modeling in Paris in the late 1940s, and both later lived in Switzerland.[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001010/bio/) She suffered from manic depression and had made several suicide attempts, on some of which Hepburn's intervention was credited with saving her life.[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001010/bio/) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/509374/capucine-profile)
By 1990 her career had been reduced to sporadic work, and friends described her as ill and depressed, living as a near-total recluse for the previous five years with her cats and plants for company.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/509374/capucine-profile) • [8](https://www.upi.com/amp/Archives/1990/03/20/Film-actress-Capucine-jumps-to-death/2148637909200/) On 17 March 1990 she jumped to her death from her eighth-floor apartment in Lausanne; police reported the death a suicide.[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001010/bio/) • [7](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-03-21-mn-453-story.html) Her New York Times obituary stated that her only known survivors were her three cats.[1](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001010/bio/)
## References
1. [Capucine – Biography, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001010/bio/)
2. [Capucine Profile, by Lorraine Lo, Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/509374/capucine-profile)
3. [Capucine filmography, AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/PersonDetails/783)
4. [Capucine (1931–1990), Dictionary of Women Worldwide, Encyclopedia.com](https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/capucine-1931-1990)
5. [Capucine, AlloCiné](https://www.allocine.fr/personne/fichepersonne_gen_cpersonne%3D5581.html)
6. [French Actress Capucine Killed in Eight-Floor Fall, Roanoke Times (New York Times wire), 21 March 1990](https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/ROA-Times/issues/1990/rt9003/900321/03212325.htm)
7. [Capucine, 57; Ex-Actress, Paris Model, Los Angeles Times, 21 March 1990](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-03-21-mn-453-story.html)
8. [Film actress Capucine jumps to death, UPI, 20 March 1990](https://www.upi.com/amp/Archives/1990/03/20/Film-actress-Capucine-jumps-to-death/2148637909200/)
9. [Movies: The Hottest Icicle, Time, 10 December 1965](https://time.com/archive/6833409/movies-the-hottest-icicle/)
10. [Capucine filmography, Cinéma Français](https://cinema-francais.fr/les_actrices/actrices_C/capucine.htm)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Screen people and creators › Screen actors of the Anglosphere and Europe › French actors › Surnames A to D*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license