Madeleine Béjart (8 January 1618 - 17 February 1672), was a French actress and theatre director, one of the most famous French stage actors of the 17th-century. She belonged to the Béjart family, a famous theatre family in 17th-century France. Madeleine was the second child of Joseph and Marie-Herve Bejart. She debuted with her elder brother Joseph at the Theatre du Marais and in the provinces in the late 1630s.