Annabella; French Actress Appeared in Gance’s ‘Napoleon’

PARIS — Suzanne Charpentier, the French actress better known by her screen name Annabella for such films as “Napoleon” and “Hotel du Nord,” has died of a heart attack. She was 86.

Annabella, who was once married to American actor Tyrone Power, died Wednesday at her home in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine while she was having her morning tea, her friend Jose Sourillan said.

“She was just sitting there fine and was dead a second later,” he said.

Annabella’s career began in 1926 with Abel Gance’s silent epic-length “Napoleon,” which was restored in the mid-1980s by American director Francis Ford Coppola.

She also starred in a string of 1930s talkies that took a sentimental view of working-class Paris, including the 1938 classic “Hotel du Nord.”

Among her other films were “Wings of the Morning” with Henry Fonda in 1937, “Suez” with Power and Loretta Young in 1938 and “13 Rue Madeleine” with James Cagney in 1946.

“Annabella is the sparkle that makes ‘Wings of the Morning’ different,” wrote Times film critic Edwin Schallert. “Pretty and versatile, she displays unrivaled naturalness in her work.”

Annabella returned to France after her divorce from Power in 1948. She made her final film, “Le Plus Bel Amour de Don Juan” (The Most Beautiful Love of Don Juan), in 1952.

The actress is survived by a daughter, Anne Werner Power, who lives in Boston.