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Usually described as a "French general purpose actor," Paul Meurisse left clerical work for a music-hall career. He began making films in 1941, but was relatively unknown until his engagement to famed French songstress Edith Piaf, through whose sponsorship he attained better movie roles. Like most of Piaf's impulsive romances, Meurisse was soon discarded, but he managed to do quite well for himself in semi-serious character roles. Paul Meurisse's most famous screen role was as the apparently murdered husband in Henri-Georges Clouzot's labyrinthine thriller Diabolique (1954).