Francois suggested newly famous stage actress Michele Alfa for the role of Christine, and Renoir went with his wife Marguerite and Zwobada to see her perform in a play. While at the play Renoir noticed Nora Gregor in a box seat in the audience and asked about her during the intermission. He learned that Gregor was the wife of Prince Ernst Rudiger von Stahremberg, an Austrian nobleman. Renoir became friends with Gregor and her husband, getting to know them over several dinners in Paris. Stahremberg was forced to resign his leadership role in the Heimwehra paramilitary fascist partybecause Gregor was Jewish and he was anti-fascist. When Germany annexed Austria in March 1938 Gregor and Stahremberg fled to France. Renoir said they were "in a state of great disarray. Everything they believed in was collapsing." Gregor was an actress from the Viennese "Burgtheater" and had appeared in some films, including Carl Theodor Dreyer's "Michael". Gregor's first husband had been the concert pianist Mitja Nikisch, son of the renowned conductor Arthur Nikisch of the Leipzig Opera and according to film theorist Charles Drazin, a possible inspiration for some characteristics of Octave.