Last weekend I watched Hitchcock’s brilliant movie To Catch A Thief, and it’s always a pleasure to gaze upon the mid-1950s Grace Kelly and her Sunbeam Alpine sports car:
…not to mention the glorious scenery of the Midi:
However, in all this ogling, a random brain cell fastened on the other cutie in the movie, the teenager Danielle, who has a crush on the (much-older) Cary Grant.
In real life, her name was Brigitte Auber, and in the movie, she’s given the tomboy treatment — no doubt to reinforce the illusion of her age (she was actually nearly 30 when the movie was made), as much as to make her less alluring than the leading lady.
Of course, outside that look, she was a lot more interesting:
But Brigitte’s real claim to fame is that she helped turn her then-boyfriend, one Alain Delon, into a movie star.
By the way, Brigitte Auber will be turning 100 in a month’s time.
To Catch a Thief is a rather good movie. Thanks for posting about Auber.
That blue ride is a Sunbeam Alpine?
Rather fetching.
Movies with a good story and script acted out by great Actors…she cute.
As a teenager in the 70’s my best friend’s dad bought a fundraiser lottery ticket and won a Sunbeam Tiger. He was a engine mechanic for the CSX rail road. He was a rough and tough guy driving a dainty Brit convertible is the deep south. It was his daily driver for over 20 years.
That is not the Sunbeam Alpine which most of us know. That is the Sunbeam Alpine Mark III from 1952-1953. The Sunbeam which most of us know is the later Sunbeam Alpine of the1960’s. There was also the Sunbeam Tiger, which was an Alpine with a V-8 engine stuffed in it, compliments of Carroll Shelby.
Almost bought a Tiger, circa 1976. Bought a Triumph TR-6 instead.
Gosh, I am an Olde Pharte.