French-born actress Corinne Calvet, whose legal battles with Zsa Zsa Gabor and others sometimes overshadowed her film work, has died of a cerebral hemorrhage. She was 76.
Calvet died Saturday in hospital after being stricken the evening before at her home, a friend told the Los Angeles Times.
The glamorous actress appeared in a number of popular films in the 1950s, including "What Price Glory?" with James Cagney and "On the Riviera" with Danny Kaye.
She played opposite Burt Lancaster in her first American film, "Rope of Sand," in 1949.
Calvet also made headlines off-screen.
In 1952 she filed a one-million-dollar slander suit against Zsa Zsa Gabor, alleging that Gabor had told a prominent Hollywood columnist that Calvet was not really French.
In 1967, her then-boyfriend, the well-heeled Donald Scott, sued her to recover assets placed under her name in an effort to hide them from his wife during a divorce battle.
Scott alleged that Calvet had used voodoo to control him. The case was settled after a bitter two-week trial.
According to the Los Angeles Times, she once told a reporter that American men made wonderful husbands -- if you don't love them. But if you love them don't marry them, she said.
There was a certain poetic symmetry to Calvet's court battles.
Born Corinne Dibos, she had studied criminal law at the Sorbonne in Paris before turning to acting.
After the end of World War II, she was noticed by Paramount Studios, which brought her to the United States.
Calvet's memoir -- "Has Corinne Been a Good Girl" -- was published in 1983.
She is survived by a son -- (AFP)
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