French operatic soprano, actress, author, and the sister of novelist Maurice Leblanc. She became particularly associated with the works of Jules Massenet and was an admired interpreter of the title role in Bizet’s Carmen. For many years Leblanc was the lover of Belgian playwright and writer Maurice Maeterlinck, and he wrote several parts for her within his stage plays. She portrayed the role of Ariane in Ariane et Barbe-bleue, both in the original 1899 stage play by Maeterlinck and in the 1907 opera adaptation by Paul Dukas. Leblanc also appeared in a couple of French films, most notably L’Inhumaine in 1924.
Her relationship with Maeterlinck ended in 1918 when it became clear that he was involved with another woman, the actress Renée Dahon. Leblanc had a number of romantic relationships with high profile individuals during the 1920s and 1930s. For a brief time she was involved with Greco-Armenian mystic G. I. Gurdjieff. She was also a close friend of fellow Gurdjieff student Margaret Anderson and some scholars speculate the two may have been lovers during the last fifteen years of Leblanc’s life. She continued to be popular among the Parisian artistic social circles and was notably friends with Jean Cocteau and Marcel L’Herbier.
In the last few decades of her life she turned to writing, producing two commercially successful autobiographies and several children’s books and travelogues.
She died of cancer at Cannes, Alpes-Maritimes at 8:30pm on 26 October 1941 and was buried in the Notre Dame des Anges Cemetery beside Margaret Anderson.
Link to Wikipedia biography