Born as Denise Billecard in Paris, she
was one of five daughters of a French baker, and she was college educated,
studying at the University of Dijon. According to a friend, whom she met in
Paris during World War II, she was a passenger in an L-5 Stinson light observation
aircraft on VJ Day to see the celebration from the air. The pilot, James
Helinger Sr., a US Army Air Corps glider pilot (a friend) was at the controls,
while they flew under several bridges along the Seine and finally, under the
Eiffel Tower, with the crowds below.
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A winner of the title "The Most Beautiful Girl in France," Darcel was a cabaret singer in Paris after World War II before being spotted by Hollywood. Denise came to the United States in 1947 and became an American citizen in 1952. Darcel's debut on the legitimate stage came in 1950, when she appeared in Pardon Our French, premiering 5 October at the Broadway Theatre.
In 1950, Darcel had a Vaudeville act, which was panned by at least one reviewer. About Darcel's performance 5 May 1950, at the Strand in New York, the Billboard review said: "Denise Darcel showed her well-stacked chassis ... but her heavily accented English sounded like so much gibberish; it got laughs instead of attention. ... her singing is inadequate, her over-use of hands and arms is clumsy and she shows herself completely at a loss in handling hecklers."
Her first film appearance of note was in Battleground (1949). She made quite an impression in Tarzan and the Slave Girl (1950) opposite Lex Barker, then co-starred with Robert Taylor in Westward the Women (1952) and Glenn Ford in Young Man with Ideas (1952).
In 1953, she was
seen in the swimming musical Dangerous When Wet, which starred Esther Williams
(1953). Her most important film was Vera Cruz (1954) where she played the
female lead opposite Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster. Her last film (1961) was
Seven Women from Hell. Darcel appeared on various TV shows in
the 1950s. In 1954, she was hostess/MC of Gamble on Love, a summer program on
the DuMont Television Network. Darcel asked questions of married couples who
sought to win the grand prize of a mink coat. Also in 1954, Colonel Productions produced a
pilot of Chez Denise, a 30-minute "comedy-intrigue" program starring
Darcel, which apparently did not sell.
On 23 June 1968, Darcel was arrested in
Miami, Florida, and charged with shoplifting women's undergarments valued at
$38.94 ($330 today). She was released on $500 bond. She was found guilty and
fined $300 ($2,520 today) in a trial 10 July 1968. Darcel and her husband,
Robert Gerard Atkinson, filed bankruptcy petitions in San Bernardino,
California, in 1963. The petitions listed "total assets of $1,508 ($14,410
today) and individual and joint debts of $88,904 for her and $62,223 for
him."(total of $1,445,000 today).
Darcel died in December 2011, aged 87, after emergency surgery to repair a ruptured aneurysm.
(Edited from Wikipedia)