Drue Leyton (born Dorothy Elizabeth Blackman; 12 June 1903 – 8 February 1997) was an American actress and member of the

French Resistance The French Resistance ( ) was a collection of groups that fought the German military administration in occupied France during World War II, Nazi occupation and the Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy#France, collaborationist Vic ...

. She also was billed as Freya Leigh.

Early years

Leyton was born in California (or Somers, Wisconsin) but lived with her family in Mexico, where her father was a mining engineer. She was educated at the Bennett School for Girls in

Millbrook, New York Millbrook is a Administrative divisions of New York#Village, village in Dutchess County, New York, United States. Millbrook is located in the Hudson Valley, on the east side of the Hudson River, north of New York City. Millbrook is near the cent ...

; a school in

Lausanne Lausanne ( , ; ; ) is the capital and largest List of towns in Switzerland, city of the Swiss French-speaking Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Vaud, in Switzerland. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway bet ...

, Switzerland; and at the Sorbonne.

Acting

She became an actress after a failed marriage and acted in ''

Green Grow the Lilacs Green Grow the Lilacs is a folk song of Irish origin that was popular in the United States during the mid-19th century. The song title is the source of a folk etymology for the word ''gringo'' that states that the Mexicans misheard U.S. troops si ...

'' on Broadway and several

Charlie Chan Charlie Chan is a fictional Honolulu Police Department, Honolulu police detective created by author Earl Derr Biggers for a series of mystery novels. Biggers loosely based Chan on Hawaiian detective Chang Apana. The benevolent and heroic Chan ...

films. Her Broadway credits also included ''Red Harvest'' (1937), ''A Hero Is Born'' (1937), and ''We Are No Longer Children'' (1932), for which she was billed as Freya Leigh. In 1937, Leyton acted in a Works Progress Administration Theatre Project in New York. She went from there to England, where she performed in '' Golden Boy''.

French resistance

In 1937, Leyton moved to Paris with her future husband Jacques Terrane (born Jacques Tartière), a Franco-American actor who died in

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

in 1941 fighting with the

Free French forces __NOTOC__ The French Liberation Army ( ; AFL) was the reunified French Army that arose from the merging of the Armée d'Afrique with the prior Free French Forces (; FFL) during World War II. The military force of Free France, it participated ...

. In France, Leyton produced and interviewed people on programs for Radio Mondial, a

shortwave radio Shortwave radio is radio transmission using radio frequencies in the shortwave bands (SW). There is no official definition of the band range, but it always includes all of the High frequency, high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30& ...

station operated by France's Ministry of Information. The programs were designed to promote France to an American audience. Leyton broadcast for the

Voice of America Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is an international broadcasting network funded by the federal government of the United States that by law has editorial independence from the government. It is the largest and oldest of the American internation ...

while acting in Paris in 1938 and her criticisms of the Nazi regime during these broadcasts earned her a promise of execution announced by Berlin radio. In September 1942, she was arrested by the Nazis after northern and western France came under German occupation — but only because she was an American woman, her true identity unknown to the authorities. She managed to escape from her prison camp with the help of French doctors by feigning cancer. She returned to her home in

Barbizon Barbizon () is a commune (town) in the Seine-et-Marne department in north-central France. It is located near the Fontainebleau Forest. Demographics The inhabitants are called ''Barbizonais''. Art history The Barbizon school of painters is n ...

in 1942 and joined the resistance movement, helping 42 downed Allied airmen escape to freedom and hiding others in her home until the war ended. During this period, she was known as Dorothy Tartière, using her married name. She was assisted at times in hiding the airmen by

Sylvia Beach Sylvia Beach (14 March 1887 – 5 October 1962), born Nancy Woodbridge Beach, was an American-born bookseller and publisher who lived most of her life in Paris, where she was one of the leading expatriate figures between World War I and World W ...

, American-born owner of the Paris bookstore Shakespeare and Company. Leyton and M. H. Werner wrote about this period in a book ''The House Near Paris.''

Personal life

Leyton met Tartière in New York in 1937, and they wed in 1938 in London.

Death

On 2 February 1997, Leyton died in

Corona del Mar, California Corona del Mar (Spanish for "Crown of the Sea") is a seaside neighborhood in the city of Newport Beach, California. It generally consists of all the land on the seaward face of the San Joaquin Hills south of Avocado Avenue to the city limits, a ...

Filmography

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leyton, Drue 1903 births 1997 deaths Actresses from Wisconsin People from Somers, Wisconsin French Resistance members Female resistance members of World War II Writers from Wisconsin American women civilians in World War II 20th-century American people