Florence Marly

Marly was born Hana Smékalová in Obrnice, Czechoslovakia. She studied French and her dream was to become an opera singer. At age 18 she went to Paris to study art, literature, and philosophy at Sorbonne.

Marly met her future husband, director Pierre Chenal, who cast her in his film The Alibi in 1937. During World War II, Marly moved to neutral Argentina with her Jewish husband Chenal, where she appeared in several films. She also acted in two of her husband's films while they were in Chile.^[2]

After the war, she played a major role in René Clément's Les Maudits, a fictionalized account showing the fate of Nazi refugees.^[3] After moving to Hollywood, she acted in Paramount's film Sealed Verdict opposite Ray Milland.^[4] Next year, she starred in Stuart Heisler's Tokyo Joe (1949) alongside Humphrey Bogart. In it she played Bogart's wife, who divorces him after he moves to the United States from Japan before Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II. The film met with mixed responses from critics. Clive Hirschhorn wrote in his book, The Columbia Story, that it was "a little more than a Bogart parody".^[5] Marly's acting in the espionage film Tokyo File 212 brought her appreciations. Robert J. Lentz wrote in Korean War Filmography that she had given the best performance in the film.^[6] It was Hollywood's first feature film to be shot entirely in Japan.^[7]

In 1962, she appeared in a small role as a gangster's girlfriend in the Twilight Zone episode "Dead Man's Shoes".^[8] She had the eponymous role of a blood-thirsty vampire queen in Curtis Harrington-directed science fiction horror film Queen of Blood (1966), novelized by Charles Nuetzel.^[9] It met with positive reviews.^[10] Paul Meehan wrote in Saucer Movies that she gave a "convincing" performance.^[11] Marly made a 16 mm short sequel to Queen of Blood titled Space Boy! (1973).^[12]

Her last film role was in The Astrologer (1976), which was infamously lost until 2021.^[13][14][15]

During the early years of her acting career, the U.S. Consulate mistook her for the Russian-born, left-inclined, singer and songwriter Anna Marly, and she was subsequently blacklisted in Hollywood by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Even after she was cleared from the blacklist, at a Hollywood party Jack L. Warner "turned his back on [her]".^[16] Noël Coward, in a letter, called her a "rather sweet" "beautiful Czech lady".^[17]

At a dinner, director Fritz Lang bit Marly's hand.^[9]

She was married to Pierre Chenal from 1937 to 1955.^[18] In 1956 she married the Austrian Count Degenhart von Wurmbrand-Stuppach (1893-1965) but divorced him the same year.