Denise Darcel (née Billecard, 8 September 1924 – 23 December 2011) was a French-American vaudevillian, actress and singer, who from 1948 and 1963, appeared in films in Hollywood, and briefly on the stage, television and radio.

[2] Born as Denise Billecard[3] in Paris, she was one of five daughters[4] of a French baker,[5] and she was college educated,[6] studying at the University of Dijon.

[4] 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.

[7] A winner of the title "The Most Beautiful Girl in France,"[8] Darcel was a cabaret singer in Paris after World War II before being spotted by Hollywood.

Wasserman hoped that her photograph would inspire women throughout the nation to join the ranks of the labor force and support the war effort in Korea.

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).

[15] After her film and television career began to wane, Darcel, aged 41, became an ecdysiast (stripper),[13] appearing in West Coast theatres in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Oakland, and Los Angeles.

In 1991,[16] she was cast as "Solange La Fitte" in the Los Angeles 20th anniversary revival of the musical Follies, produced by the Long Beach Civic Light Opera.

The world's oldest drag queen, Walter W. Cole took the stage name of Darcelle XV, in honor of Denise Darcel.