María Casares (b. Spain, 21 November 1922 – d. 22 November 1996, France) was a Spanish-French actress and one of the most distinguished stars of the French stage and cinema. Casares was born María Victoria Casares y Pérez in A Coruña, Galicia, the daughter of Santiago Casares Quiroga, a minister in Manuel Azañas government and Prime Minister of Spain, and of Gloria Pérez. She was a volunteer in Madrid hospitals already at age fourteen. Her father was a member of the Republican government so, at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War (1936), the family was forced to flee Spain. Her father went to London, but she and her mother sought refuge in Paris.
