Jacqueline Scott-Lemoine, an actress between Haiti and Senegal, was born 103 years ago

One hundred and three years ago, on October 28, 1923, Jacqueline Scott-Lemoine was born in Port-au-Prince. An actress and writer, she made her life in Senegal, of which she took the nationality.

From the Stage of Port-au-Prince to Paris

She discovered a passion for theater in Haiti at the end of the 1940s and trained at the French Institute of Haiti and then at the Conservatory of Dramatic Art in Port-au-Prince. Fleeing the regime of François Duvalier, she went to France in 1962 and worked at the Maison de la Radio. She acted in Les Gouverneurs de la Rosée, based on Jacques Roumain, where Jean-Marie Serreau noticed her. In 1964, he entrusted her with the role of Madame Christophe in La Tragédie du roi Christophe by Aimé Césaire. On this show, she met Lucien Lemoine, whom she married that same year.

Dakar, Land of Adoption

In April 1966, she performed the play in Senegal during the first World Festival of Black Arts and then settled there with her husband. She became Senegalese in 1976. She performed at the National Theater Daniel-Sorano and in cinema, notably in Le Décaméron Noir by Piero Vivarelli and Amok by Souheil Ben Barka. For twelve years, she produced with her husband the show La Voix des Poètes. She also taught at CESTI and ran a theater workshop at Cheikh Anta Diop University.

Writing and Farewells

In 2005, she published Les Nuits de Tulussia with Présence Africaine, then the play La Ligne de Crête in 2007. She last performed on stage in 2005, in L'Exil d'Albouri. She died in Dakar on July 9, 2011, a year after Lucien Lemoine.