Draft:Nita Raya

Nita Raya

Background:
Nita Raya (15 October 1915 - 25 March 2015) was a popular actress following the Roaring Twenties. Raya was originally married to Maurice Chevalier (12 September 1888 - 1 January 1972) in 1937. Maurice Chevalier was also a famous entertainer throughout the mid - late 1900s.

Biography:
Nita Raya was a French woman with Jewish-Romanian roots born in Chișinău, Moldavia to father Vladimir Beloff and mother Anna Jerkovitch. Raya began participating in dance / performing in 1926 following her move to France, an accident halted her dance career which is what led to her participation in acting. As she began to build a name for herself in the acting field, 19 year old Nita Raya took a liking to singer/actor Maurice Chevalier who would become her companion for 10 years (1935-1945).

Work Life:
Beginning in the mid 1930s Nita Raya’s career began to take off rapidly. Appearing in films such as Lucrezia Borgia (1935), Au son des guitares (1936), and her most well known film Les Rois du sport (1937). These are just a few of Nita Raya’s notable films, yet there was a dry spell in Nita Raya’s career due to the war present in France. Her husband at the time, Maurice Chevalier, aided Raya in avoiding deportation due to her Jewish roots by obtaining fake identity papers. Nita Raya appeared in her final film, La rafle est pour ce soir (1954) and continued to perform and write songs until being placed in a retirement home and passing away (25 March 2015).