Estelle Roy de Menditte

Biography

Estelle Roy de Menditte (born 1892), also known by some as Estelle Roy or Estelle Menditte for short, was an actress born in Troyes, Aube, France, who starred in a handful of lost family test reels and the 1905 short film, "Le déjeuner de minet," also translated to, "Pussy's Breakfast," or "Cats' Breakfast," released in 1906 by the Pathé Frères company. She had 11 confirmed children and lived in France throughout her entire life, never stepping foot in another country, as a stay-at-home mom. Her husband passed away, sometime before the 1939 war, from an unknown illness. At that time, she left for the Basque country with some of her children in a family castle, where she lived until her eventual passing in 1988. She was the great grandmother of French vlogger, Abel Roy, who confirmed her identity and background on her life in 2021, after viewing the remastered and colorized version from the film collection, "Eye Filmmuseum (Amsterdam)," on YouTube. It was later confirmed that the older woman in the same film was Estelle Roy de Menditte's grandmother. There are rumours suggesting the director of her only found film was by famous filmmaker, Louis Lumière, based on the time period, country, and creating similar pieces by the likes of, "Déjeuner du Chat," and "La petite fille et son chat," but the legitimacy of these claims have yet to be confirmed and seem unlikely based on the company it was made by.