I’ve mentioned many times before CASABLANCA is my all-time favorite movie. News came across the Atlantic today that Madeleine LeBeau, the last surviving cast member, passed away May 1, 2016 at age 92. Mademoiselle LeBeau’s early life reads like the CASABLANCA script, as she and her then-husband Marcel Dalio (who played the croupier in the film) fled Paris during the Nazi occupation to Portugal, receiving letters of transit in Lisbon. The letters turned out to be forgeries, and the couple were stranded in Mexico before emigrating to America, landing in Hollywood to resume their acting careers.

Madeleine’s stateside credits are brief, and can be divided into pre- (HOLD BACK THE DAWN, GENTLEMAN JIM) and post- (PARIS AFTER DARK, MUSIC FOR MILLIONS) CASABLANCA films. After divorcing Dalio, she returned to Europe in 1947. She made movies in her native France (the all-star NAPOLEON and LA PARISIENNE with French cinema icons Charles Boyer and…