Rita Cadillac

Short Biography

Biography by Bruce Eder [-]Rita Cadillac was a French strip-tease artist who achieved some modest popularity onscreen in occasional film appearances between the mid-'50s and the 1980s. She was born Nicole Yasterbelsky in Paris, France, in 1936 (some sources say 1939, but that would make her 15 for her screen debut in adult roles), and managed to survive the upheavals of World War II and the German occupation. As Rita Cadillac, she began making a name for herself on-stage at age 18, her well-proportioned form -- which became legendary in European popular culture circles -- attracting notice as early as the mid-'50s. Her first film appearances date from this same period, in features such as Soirs de Paris (1954), Gueule d'ange (1955) (released overseas as Pleasures And Vices), Pas de pitie pour les caves (1955), and Jusqu'au dernier (1956) (issued in America as Until the Last One). The most distinguished of the films in which Cadillac worked, however, was René Clément's Gervais (1956), for which, ironically enough, she received no credit, merely serving as the body double for Suzy Delair (who was 20 years her senior) in one scene. During the 1960s, Cadillac acted in Me Faire Ca a Moi (1960) (aka Do That to Me), Dossier 1413 (1961) (aka Secret File 1413), and Prostitution (1963), among other films. Her last major movie appearance was in the role of Monique in Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot (1981). She died of cancer in 1995.