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- Actress
- Soundtrack
Olivia Mary de Havilland was born on July 1, 1916 in Tokyo, Japan to British parents, Lilian Augusta (Ruse), a former actress, and Walter Augustus de Havilland, an English professor and patent attorney. Her sister Joan, later to become famous as Joan Fontaine, was born the following year. Her surname comes from her paternal grandfather, whose family was from Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Her parents divorced when Olivia was just three years old, and she moved with her mother and sister to Saratoga, California.
After graduating from high school, where she fell prey to the acting bug, Olivia enrolled in Mills College in Oakland, where she participated in the school play "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and was spotted by Max Reinhardt. She so impressed Reinhardt that he picked her up for both his stage version and, later, the Warner Bros. film version in 1935. She again was so impressive that Warner executives signed her to a seven-year contract. No sooner had the ink dried on the contract than Olivia appeared in three more films: The Irish in Us (1935), Alibi Ike (1935), and Captain Blood (1935), this last with the man with whom her career would be most closely identified: heartthrob Errol Flynn. He and Olivia starred together in eight films during their careers. In 1939 Warner Bros. loaned her to David O. Selznick for the classic Gone with the Wind (1939). Playing sweet Melanie Hamilton, Olivia received her first nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, only to lose out to one of her co-stars in the film, Hattie McDaniel.
After GWTW, Olivia returned to Warner Bros. and continued to churn out films. In 1941 she played Emmy Brown in Hold Back the Dawn (1941), which resulted in her second Oscar nomination, this time for Best Actress. Again she lost, this time to her sister Joan for her role in Suspicion (1941). After that strong showing, Olivia now demanded better, more substantial roles than the "sweet young thing" slot into which Warners had been fitting her. The studio responded by placing her on a six-month suspension, all of the studios at the time operating under the policy that players were nothing more than property to do with as they saw fit. As if that weren't bad enough, when her contract with Warners was up, she was told that she needed to make up the time lost because of the suspension. Irate, she sued the studio, and for the length of the court battle she didn't appear in a single film. The result, however, was worth it. In a landmark decision, the court said that not only would Olivia not need to make up the time, but also that all performers would be limited to a seven-year contract that would include any suspensions handed down. This became known as the "de Havilland decision": no longer could studios treat their performers as chattel. Olivia returned to the screen in 1946 and made up for lost time by appearing in four films, one of which finally won her the Oscar that had so long eluded her: To Each His Own (1946), in which she played Josephine Norris to the delight of critics and audiences alike. Olivia was the strongest performer in Hollywood for the balance of the 1940s.
In 1948 she turned in another strong showing in The Snake Pit (1948) as Virginia Cunningham, a woman suffering a mental breakdown. The end result was another Oscar nomination for Best Actress, but she lost to Jane Wyman in Johnny Belinda (1948). As in the
two previous years, she made only one film in 1949, but she again won a nomination and the Academy Award for Best Actress for
The Heiress (1949). After a three-year hiatus, Olivia returned to star in My Cousin Rachel (1952). From that point on, she made few appearances on the screen but was seen on Broadway and in some television shows. Her last screen appearance was in The Fifth Musketeer (1979), and her last career appearance was in the TV movie The Woman He Loved (1988).
Her turbulent relationship with her only sibling, Joan Fontaine, was press fodder for many decades; the two were reported as having been permanently estranged since their mother's death in 1975, when Joan claimed that she had not been invited to the memorial service, which she only managed to hold off until she could arrive by threatening to go public. Joan also wrote in her memoir that her elder sister had been physically, psychologically, and emotionally abusive when they were young. And the iconic photo of Joan with her hand outstretched to congratulate Olivia backstage after the latter's first Oscar win and Olivia ignoring it because she was peeved by a comment Joan had made about Olivia's new husband, Marcus Goodrich, remained part of Hollywood lore for many years.
Nonetheless, late in life, Fontaine gave an interview in which she serenely denied any and all claims of an estrangement from her sister. When a reporter asked Joan if she and Olivia were friends, she replied, "Of course!" The reporter responded that rumors to the contrary must have been sensationalism and she replied, "Oh, right--they have to. Two nice girls liking each other isn't copy." Asked if she and Olivia were in communication and spoke to each other, Joan replied "Absolutely." When asked if there ever had been a time when the two did not get along to the point where they wouldn't speak with one another, Joan replied, again, "Never. Never. There is not a word of truth about that." When asked why people believe it, she replied "Oh, I have no idea. It's just something to say ... Oh, it's terrible." When asked if she had seen Olivia over the years, she replied, "I've seen her in Paris. And she came to my apartment in New York often." The reporter stated that all this was a nice thing to hear. Joan then stated, "Let me just say, Olivia and I have never had a quarrel. We have never had any dissatisfaction. We have never had hard words. And all this is press." Joan died in 2013.
During the hoopla surrounding the 50th anniversary of GWTW in 1989, Olivia graciously declined requests for all interviews as the last of the four main stars. She enjoyed a quiet retirement in Paris, France, where she resided for many decades, and where she died on 26 July, 2020, at the age of 104.
As well as being the last surviving major cast member of some of cinema's most beloved pre-war and wartime film classics (including The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and Gone with the Wind (1939)), and one of the longest-lived major stars in film history, Olivia de Havilland was unquestionably the last surviving iconic figure from the peak of Hollywood's golden era during the late 1930s, and her passing truly marked the end of an era.- Actress
- Writer
- Director
Nathalie Delon was born on 1 August 1941 in Oujda, French Protectorate Morocco [now Morocco]. She was an actress and writer, known for The Samurai (1967), They Call It an Accident (1982) and The French Dispatch (2021). She was married to Alain Delon and Guy Barthelemy. She died on 21 January 2021 in Paris, France.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Romy Schneider was born on 23
September 1938 in Vienna, Austria into a family of actors. Making her
film debut at the age of 15, her breakthrough came two years later in
the very popular trilogy Sissi (1955). Her
mother, supervising her daughter's career, immediately approved Romy's
participation in Christine (1958), the
remake of Max Ophüls's
Playing at Love (1933), where
Magda Schneider once starred
herself. During the shooting, she fell in love with her co-star
Alain Delon and eventually moved with him to
Paris. At that time, she started her international career collaborating
with famous directors such as
Luchino Visconti and
Orson Welles. After Delon had broken up
with her in 1964, she married Harry Meyen
shortly after. Although she gave birth to a boy, David-Christopher,
their relationship was difficult, so they divorced in 1975. Being
unsatisfied with her personal life, she turned to alcohol and drugs,
but her cinematic career -especially in France- remained intact. She
was the first actress, receiving the new created César Award as "Best
Actress" for her role in
That Most Important Thing: Love (1975).
Three years later, she was awarded again for
A Simple Story (1978).
After a short marriage to her former secretary
Daniel Biasini, being the father of her
daughter Sarah Biasini, she suffered the
hardest blow of her life when her son was impaled on a fence in 1981.
She never managed to recover from this loss and died on 29 May 1982 in
Paris. Although it was suggested she committed suicide caused by an
overdose of sleeping pills, she was declared to have died from cardiac
arrest.- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Jane Birkin was born on 14 December 1946 in London, England, UK. She was an actress and director, known for Evil Under the Sun (1982), Blow-Up (1966) and Death on the Nile (1978). She was married to John Barry. She died on 16 July 2023 in Paris, France.- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Her father was a police lieutenant and imbued in her a military
attitude to life. Marlene was known in school for her "bedroom eyes"
and her first affairs were at this stage in her life - a professor at
the school was terminated. She entered the cabaret scene in 1920s
Germany, first as a spectator then as a cabaret singer. In 1923, she
married and, although she and
Rudolf Sieber lived together only 5 years,
they remained married until his death. She was in over a dozen silent
films in increasingly important roles. In 1929, she was seen in a
Berlin cabaret by
Josef von Sternberg and, after a
screen test, captured the role of the cabaret singer in
The Blue Angel (1930) (and
became von Sternberg's lover). With the success of this film, von
Sternberg immediately took her to Hollywood, introducing her to the
world in Morocco (1930), and signing an
agreement to produce all her films. A series of successes followed, and
Marlene became the highest paid actress of her time, but her later
films in the mid-part of the decade were critical and popular failures.
She returned to Europe at the end of the decade, with a series of
affairs with former leading men (she had a reputation of romancing her
co-stars), as well as other prominent artistic figures. In 1939, an
offer came to star with
James Stewart in a western and,
after initial hesitation, she accepted. The film was
Destry Rides Again (1939) -
the siren of film could also be a comedienne and a remarkable comeback
was reality. She toured extensively for the allied effort in WW II (she
had become a United States citizen) and, after the war, limited her
cinematic life. But a new career as a singer and performer appeared,
with reviews and shows in Las Vegas, touring theatricals, and even
Broadway. New success was accompanied by a too close acquaintance with
alcohol, until falls in her performance eventually resulted in a
compound fracture of the leg. Although the last 13 years of her life
were spent in seclusion in her apartment in Paris, with the last 12
years in bed, she had withdrawn only from public life and maintained
active telephone and correspondence contact with friends and
associates.- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Director
Jean Dorothy Seberg was born in Marshalltown, Iowa, to substitute teacher Dorothy Arline (Benson) and pharmacist Edward Waldemar Seberg. Her father was of Swedish descent and her mother was of English and German ancestry.
One month before her 18th birthday, Jean landed the title role
in Otto Preminger's
Saint Joan (1957) after a
much-publicized contest involving some 18,000 hopefuls. The failure of
that film and the only moderate success of her next,
Bonjour Tristesse (1958),
combined to stall Seberg's career, until her role in
Jean-Luc Godard's landmark feature,
Breathless (1960),
brought her renewed international attention. Seberg gave a memorable
performance as a schizophrenic in the title role of
Robert Rossen's
Lilith (1964) opposite
Warren Beatty and went on to
appear in over 30 films in Hollywood and Europe.
In the late 1960s, Seberg became involved in anti-war politics and was
the target of an undercover campaign by the FBI to discredit her
because of her association with several members of the Black Panther
party. She was found dead under mysterious circumstances in Paris in 1979.- Actress
- Director
- Writer
When people gave Louis Malle credit for making a star of Jeanne Moreau in
Elevator to the Gallows (1958) immediately followed by The Lovers (1958), he would point out that Moreau
by that time had already been "recognized as the prime stage actress of
her generation." She had made it to the Comédie Française in her 20s.
She had appeared in B-movie thrillers with Jean Gabin and Ascenseur was in
that genre. The technicians at the film lab went to the producer after
seeing the first week of dailies for Ascenseur and said: "You must not
let Malle destroy Jeanne Moreau". Malle explained: "She was lit only by
the windows of the Champs Elysées. That had never been done. Cameramen
would have forced her to wear a lot of make-up and they would put a lot
of light on her, because, supposedly, her face was not photogenic".
This lack of artifice revealed Moreau's "essential qualities: she could
be almost ugly and then ten seconds later she would turn her face and
would be incredibly attractive. But she would be herself".
Moreau has told interviewers that the characters she played were not
her. But even the most famous film critic of his generation, Roger Ebert,
thinks that she is a lot like her most enduring role, Catherine in
François Truffaut's Jules and Jim (1962). Behind those eyes and that enigmatic smile is a
woman with a mind. In a review of The Clothes in the Wardrobe (1993) Ebert wrote: "Jeanne Moreau
has been a treasure of the movies for 35 years... Here, playing a
flamboyant woman who nevertheless keeps her real thoughts closely
guarded, she brings about a final scene of poetic justice as perfect as
it is unexpected".
Moreau made her debut as a director in Lumiere (1976) -- also writing the
script and playing Sarah, an actress the same age as Moreau whose
romances are often with directors for the duration of making a film.
She made several films with Malle.
Still active in international cinema, Moreau presided over the jury of
the 1995 Cannes Film Festival.- André René Roussimoff was born in a small farming community in
Grenoble, France to Boris and Marian Rouismoff. His parents and four
siblings were all of normal size, but André suffered from acromegaly, a
hormonal disorder that results when the pituitary gland produces excess
growth hormone. As the Giant grew up (very quickly, as he reached the
height of 6' 3" by the age of 12) he began to often disagree with his
parents. He left home at 14 and obtained a job with a furniture-moving
firm and began to play rugby. At 17 he was seen training at a gym by
several professional wrestlers. Impressed by his size, they taught him
some basic wrestling skills and built a friendship with him. Later,
when one of the wrestlers was injured, André stepped in for him. He
would wrestle for nearly thirty more years. By his early 20s André had
wrestled in Algeria, South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, England, Scotland,
and most of non-Communist Europe but had not found fame. In 1971 he
came to North America under the name Jean Ferre and was mildly popular
in Canada. Then he met a New York based booker by the name of Vincent
J. McMahon (often incorrectly referred to as "Vince McMahon Sr") who
renamed him "Andre the Giant," and billed him as 7' 4" (Andre was
really closer to 7'). Soon Andre the Giant became a national sensation
and was a much sought after wrestler. In addition he participated in
television, movies, and commercials. With his wealth the Giant bought a
ranch in Ellerbe, North Carolina where he would live during his rare
time off and after he retired from wrestling in 1990. He died while in
France after attending his father's funeral. André was cremated and his
ashes were spread across his ranch. He is survived by his one
daughter. - Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Andrew Prine, a well-known stage actor also known for military and western
dramas, was first seen in Kiss Her Goodbye (1959), then in The Miracle Worker (1962). Prine, who has a
Texan-sounding voice, was also well remembered in westerns like
Texas Across the River (1966), Generation (1969) and Chisum (1970), which featured his close and well-known
friends Christopher George, John Wayne and Richard Jaeckel. Prine next starred in Simon, King of the Witches (1971),
One Little Indian (1973), The Centerfold Girls (1974) and Grizzly (1976), which also featured Christopher George and Richard Jaeckel.
Prine also wrote his own little dialogue story for Grizzly (1976). During this
time, through the '60s and '70s, Prine was married four times but kept his
acting career up. Prine later was in The Evil (1978), Amityville II: The Possession (1982), Eliminators (1986), Chill Factor (1989)
and Gettysburg (1993), which got Prine a big and great role. Prine is a great
veteran actor in Hollywood who will always be remembered. He has also
been in over 30 great films and made 79 guest appearances.- Actor
- Producer
- Stunts
The son of the renowned French sculptor Paul Belmondo, he studied at
Conservatoire National Superieur d'Art Dramatique (CNSAD); after the
minor stage performances he made his screen debut in À pied, à cheval et en voiture (1957) but the
episodes with his participation were cut before release. However, the
breakthrough role in Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (1960) made him one of the key figures
in the French New Wave. Since mid-60s he completely switched to
commercial mainstream pictures and became a big comedy and action star
in France. Following the example of Alain Delon he founded his own
production company Cerito named after his grandmother's maiden name. In
1989 he was awarded Cesar for his performance in Itinerary of a Spoiled Child (1988) . Recently he
returned to stage performing in the Théâtre Marigny, Paris, notably as Edmund Kean or Cyrano de Bergerac. He still
appears in the movies but not so often as before preferring mostly
dramatic roles. The president of France distinguished him with order of
Legion of Honour. Belmondo had three children with his first spouse Elodie Constant: Patricia Belmondo ( who died in a fire in 1993), Florence Belmondo and Paul Belmondo. In 2003, he had another daughter, Stella Belmondo, with his second spouse Natty Belmondo. None of his children
became actors though you could have seen his son Paul in an episodic
role (the same as his father, at an earlier age) in Itinerary of a Spoiled Child (1988).- Actress
- Soundtrack
Claudine Auger, a former Miss France 1st Runner-up (1958), received her dramatic
training at the Paris Drama Conservatory and is best known to US / UK
audiences as the stunning brunette "Domino" opposite
Sean Connery in the James Bond thriller
Thunderball (1965), She has kept
fairly busy since her Bond days, acting in a number of Italian, French
and Spanish films including
The Bermuda Triangle (1978),
Credo (1983), and
La bocca (1991).- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Marcello Mastroianni was born in Fontana Liri, Italy in 1924, but soon his family moved to Turin and then Rome. During WW2 he
was sent to a German prison camp, but he managed to escape and hide in
Venice. He debuted in films as an extra in
Marionette (1939), then started
working for the Italian department of "Eagle Lion Films" in Rome and
joined a drama club, where he was discovered by director
Luchino Visconti. In 1957 Visconti gave
him the starring part in his
Fyodor Dostoevsky adaptation
White Nights (1957) and in
1958 he was fine as a little thief in
Mario Monicelli's comedy
Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958). But his
real breakthrough came in 1960, when
Federico Fellini cast him as an
attractive, weary-eyed journalist of the Rome jet-set in
La Dolce Vita (1960); that film was
the genesis of his "Latin lover" persona, which Mastroianni himself
often denied by accepting parts of passive and sensitive men. He would
again work with Fellini in several major films, like the exquisite
8½ (1963) (as a movie director who finds
himself at a point of crisis) and the touching
Ginger & Fred (1986) (as an old
entertainer who appears in a TV show). He also appeared as a tired
novelist with marital problems in
Michelangelo Antonioni's
La Notte (1961), as an impotent young
man in Mauro Bolognini's
Bell' Antonio (1960) , as an
exiled prince in John Boorman's
Leo the Last (1970), as a traitor in
Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's
Allonsanfan (1974) and as a sensitive
homosexual in love with a housewife in
Ettore Scola's
A Special Day (1977).
He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three times, for
Divorce Italian Style (1961),
A Special Day (1977),
and Oci ciornie (1987). During the
last decade of his life he worked with directors, like
Theodoros Angelopoulos,
Bertrand Blier and
Raúl Ruiz, who gave him three excellent
parts in
Three Lives and Only One Death (1996).
He died of pancreatic cancer in 1996.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Maria Schneider was a French actress. At age 19 she became famous for Bernardo Bertolucci's film Last Tango in Paris (1972), and The Passenger (1975).
As a teenager, she adored films, going to the cinema up to four times a week. She left home at 15 after an argument with her mother and went to Paris, where she made her stage acting debut that same year.
Her film debut was an uncredited role in The Christmas Tree (1969).
In Last Tango in Paris she performed several nude scenes. After the film release she decided never to work nude again.
In early 1976, she abandoned the film set of Caligula and was replaced by Teresa Ann Savoy.
She and Brando remained friends until his death.
Schneider died of breast cancer on 3 February 2011 at age 58.- Writer
- Director
- Actor
The name "Melville" is not immediately associated with film. It
conjures up images of white whales and crackbrained captains, of
naysaying notaries and soup-spilling sailors. It is the countersign to
a realm of men and their deeds, both heroic and villainous. It is the
American novel, with its Ishmaels and its Claggarts a challenge to the
European canon. It is Herman Melville.
And yet, for over three decades, it was also worn by one of the French
cinema's brightest lights, Jean-Pierre Melville, whose art was as
revolutionary as that of the eponymous author.
Jean-Pierre Grumbach was born on October 20, 1917, to a family of
Alsatian Jews. In his youth he studied in Paris, where he was first
exposed to great films, among them
Robert J. Flaherty's and
W.S. Van Dyke's silent documentary
White Shadows in the South Seas (1928).
It left so deep a mark upon the pubescent Grumbach that he became a
regular at the cinema, an obsession that would benefit him in
adulthood. His own earliest efforts, 16mm home movies, were made with a
camera given to him by his father in this period. In 1937, however, his
career was forestalled when he began obligatory service in the French
army. He was still in uniform when the Nazis invaded in 1940; under the
nom de guerre of Melville, he aided the Resistance and was eventually
forced to flee to England. There he joined the Free French forces and
took part in the Allies' liberation of continental Europe. After the
war, despite a desire to revert to Grumbach, he found that pseudonym
had stuck.
Eager to earn his place in the movie industry, Melville applied to the
French Technicians' Union but was denied membership. Undaunted by what
he regarded as party politics, he set up his own production company in
1946 and started releasing films outside the system. The first, a
low-budget short titled
24 Hours in the Life of a Clown (1946),
was a success, inspired by his boyhood love for the circus. His
feature-length debut,
The Silence of the Sea (1949),
was highly innovative. An intimate piece on the horrors of World War
II, it starred unknown actors and was filmed by a skeleton crew. Its
schedule was unusual: It was shot over 27 days in the course of a year.
Its production was unusual: it incorporated "on-location"
scenes--rarities in that era--done without vital permits. Its
provenance was unusual: it was adapted from a book before the author's
consent was obtained. Above all, its style was unusual. Its dark,
claustrophobic sets and bottom-lit close-ups signaled a departure from
the highly cultured cinema of René Clair,
Marcel Pagnol,
Abel Gance and
Jacques Feyder. It was neither comedietta
nor costume drama nor avant-garde "cinéma pur." Where its roots may
have been in Jean Renoir's
The Grand Illusion (1937), it
was clearly something new.
Over the following 12 years Melville continued to create films that
would influence the auteurs of La Nouvelle Vague (i.e., the French New
Wave.) In 1950 he collaborated with
Jean Cocteau on an unsatisfying version of
The Terrible Children (1950),
the tale of a strange, incestuous relationship between siblings.
When You Read This Letter (1953),
with French and Italian backing, was his first commercial project.
While it was unprofitable, the fee he received allowed him to establish
a studio outside of Paris. His next work,
Bob the Gambler (1956), featured
Roger Duchesne, a popular leading man of
the 1930s who had drifted into the underworld during the war. As such,
he was a uniquely apt choice for the role of the fashionable,
self-immolating Bob. His supporting cast included
Daniel Cauchy as toadying sidekick Paolo
and newcomer Isabelle Corey as the
temptress Anne. Although the picture was not a hit, it was a favorite
of the aficionados that frequented
Henri Langlois' Cinémathèque Français.
Among them were the young savants
Jean-Luc Godard and
François Truffaut, the latter of whom
used Guy Decomble of "Bob le flambeur" in
his
The 400 Blows (1959)
that ushered in the "New Wave" era. They adored the hip, new rendering
of a tired scenario, much of it shot in the streets with hidden
cameras. They viewed it as fresh and daring, a "freeing up" through the
rejection of high-minded literary adaptations and the embracing of pop
culture. Simply put, Melville refused to play by the rules, and they
followed suit.
In retrospect, "Bob le flambeur" seems straightforward: A reformed
mobster turned high-stakes gambler comes out of retirement to pull one
last job. Its genius lies in its simplicity. Melville admired American
culture, as his alias indicated. He drove around Paris in an enormous
Cadillac, sporting a Stetson hat and aviator sunglasses. He drank
Coca-Cola and listened to American radio. The works of American
directors John Ford and
Howard Hawks were appealing to him, as they
were ageless sagas of heroes and villains. Melville strove to build his
own pantheon by blending the American ethos with his postwar
sensibilities. As he perceived it, it was America that had valiantly
rescued France from German occupation. Still, for a young man with
Alsatian roots, the line separating good guys and bad guys had been
breached, and one can see this disillusionment from
The Silence of the Sea (1949)
onward. Thus, while he borrowed from the American noir's revolt against
the dichotomous Hollywood creations of the 1930s, the artist was
forging his own apocryphal brand of dark tragedy. In his paradigm, a
criminal could be a kind of hero within his milieu, so long as he stuck
by his word and his allegiances. It was his personal style and his
adherence to the code of honor that defined a "good guy"; obversely, it
was his faith in others that was his downfall. It is a universe without
the possibility for salvation, in which love and friendship are brief
interludes in the cat-and-mouse games that lead to certain destruction.
In that sense, Bob is a crucial link between
Julien Duvivier's
Pépé le Moko (1937) and Godard's
Breathless (1960), in
which Melville gave a brilliant cameo performance.
Jean-Pierre Melville is often regarded as the godfather of the Nouvelle
Vague. Nonetheless, it is worth mentioning that had it not been for his
aforementioned passion for American film, he might have shown us a very
different "Bob le flambeur". Originally conceived as a hard-boiled
gangster flick about the step-by-step plotting of a heist, Melville was
forced to rethink its narrative after watching
John Huston's remarkably similar
The Asphalt Jungle (1950). It
was only then that he had the idea to turn Bob into the comedy of
manners that so delighted the cinephiles of the day. For this and other
debts of gratitude, his next picture,
Two Men in Manhattan (1959),
was "a love letter to New York" and the America he revered. It was also
his third straight box-office flop, however, and it caused Melville to
break away from a New Wave movement that he felt catered to the
cognoscenti. He later said, "If . . . I have consented to pass for
their adopted father for a while, I do not wish it anymore, and I have
put some distance in between us."
The first step in this split came with
Léon Morin, Priest (1961), a
wartime piece about a priest's endeavors to bring redemption to the
inhabitants of a small town. Produced by
Carlo Ponti, it was a big-budget affair with
Jean-Paul Belmondo and
Emmanuelle Riva, both household names by
then. On the strength of its favorable reception, Melville released
four consecutive cops-and-robbers movies, the most notable of which
were The Informer (1962) and
The Samurai (1967). Belmondo again
headlined in "Le Doulous", not as a clergyman but as the fingerman
Silien, whose loyalty to his old mob cronies entangles him in a web of
intrigue and disaster. During the making of "Le Samouraï", a hauntingly
minimalist film about a doomed assassin, Melville's studio burned to
the ground and the project was completed in rented facilities.
Regardless, it was a critical and commercial success. Presenting
Alain Delon as ultra-cool assassin Jef
Costello, it was considered one of the most meticulously-crafted
pictures in the history of the cinema. Delon would later star in a
second masterpiece,
The Red Circle (1970), featuring
the ultimate onscreen jewel heist. His
Charles Bronson-cum-Jack Lord
sang-froid toughness served as a counterpoint in Melville's oeuvre to
the lighter and less predictable Belmondo. Another memorable production
was Army of Shadows (1969),
an austere portrait of perfidy within the ranks of the French
Resistance.
It is trite to say that a particular artist is "not for everyone." In
Melville's case, this statement could not be more fitting. Despite a
round belly and an unattractive face, he was a notorious womanizer, and
his chauvinism is painfully obvious in his movies. They are cynical,
male-driven works in which women are devoid of nobility, merely
functioning as beautiful chess pieces. His men also lack spiritual
depth, diligently playing out their roles toward the final showdown. A
"profound moment" inevitably occurs before a mirror, a cliché for which
many critics do not share the creator's enthusiasm. As a result of
these peccadilloes, as well as its lack of back-stories and character
motivations, Melville's later output has been accused of stiffness,
with its wooden troupe of cops, crooks and general mauvais sujets.
Further, well-structured plots notwithstanding, Melville films are
methodically paced with tremendous attention paid to time and place.
Hollywoodphiles often find them slow, with an overemphasis on tone and
style.
Some have gone as far as to claim that the réalizateur's genius was
outstripped by his importance to the development of the medium. They
look to him as a sort of Moses figure, helping to guide the Nouvelle
Vague to the promised land without partaking in its fruits. At his
death by heart attack in 1973, the 55-year-old had directed just 14
projects, at least six of which are acknowledged classics. Aside from
Godard and Truffaut, luminaries such as
John Woo,
Quentin Tarantino,
Michael Mann,
Volker Schlöndorff,
Johnnie To and
Martin Scorsese have pointed to him as
an key influence. If a man's legacy is best measured not only by its
quality but by the respect of his colleagues, Jean-Pierre Melville's
contribution to cinema surely ranks with the greatest.- Writer
- Director
- Editor
Abbas Kiarostami was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1940. He graduated from
university with a degree in fine arts before starting work as a graphic
designer. He then joined the Center for Intellectual Development of
Children and Young Adults, where he started a film section, and this
started his career as a filmmaker at the age of 30. Since then he has
made many movies and has become one of the most important figures in
contemporary Iranian film. He is also a major figure in the arts world,
and has had numerous gallery exhibitions of his photography, short
films and poetry. He is an iconic figure for what he has done, and he
has achieved it all by believing in the arts and the creativity of his
mind.- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Delphine was born in Beirut on the 10th April 1932 into an intellectual
Protestant family. Her Alsatian father, Henri Seyrig, was the director
of the Archaeological Institute and later France's cultural attaché in
New York during World War Two. Her Swiss mother, Hermine De Saussure,
was an adept of Rousseau's theories, a female sailing pioneer and the
niece of the universally acclaimed linguist and semiologist, Ferdinand
De Saussure. Delphine also had a brother,
Francis Seyrig, who would go on to become
a successful composer. At the end of the war, the family relocated to
Paris, although Delphine's adolescence was to be spent between her
country, Greece and New York. Never a good student, she decided to quit
school at age 17 to pursue a stage career. Her father gave her his
approval on the condition that she would have done this with
seriousness and dedication. Delphine took courses of Dramatic Arts with
some illustrious teachers such as Roger Blin,
Pierre Bertin and
Tania Balachova. Some of her fellow
students included
Jean-Louis Trintignant,
Michael Lonsdale,
Laurent Terzieff,
Bernard Fresson,
Stéphane Audran,
Daniel Emilfork and
Antoine Vitez. Her stage debut came in
1952 in a production of Louis Ducreux's
musical "L'Amour en Papier", followed by roles in "Le Jardin du Roi"
(Pierre Devaux) and in Jean Giraudoux's
"Tessa, la nymphe au Coeur fidèle". Stage legend
Jean Dasté was the first director to offer
her a couple of parts that would truly showcase her talents: Ariel in
Shakespeare's "The Tempest" and Chérubin in Beaumarchais' "The Marriage
of Figaro". He also had her take the title role in a production of
Giraudoux's "Ondine" from Odile Versois,
who had gone to England to shoot an Ealing movie. Delphine's
performance was greeted with enormous critical approval. The young
actress stayed in Europe for a couple years more, starring in a
production of Oscar Wilde's "An Ideal
Husband" in Paris, making two guest appearances in
Sherlock Holmes (1954) (which
was entirely shot in France) and trying to enter the TNP (People's
National Theatre). She actually wasn't admitted because the poetic,
melodious voice that would become her signature mark was deemed too
strange. In 1956, Delphine decided to sail for America along with her
husband Jack Youngerman (a painter she had married in Paris) and son
Duncan.
Delphine tried to enter the Actor's studio, but, just like in the case
of many of Hollywood's finest actors, she failed the admittance test.
She would still spend three years as an observer (also attending
Lee Strasberg's classes) and this minor
mishap didn't prevent her from going on with her stage career anyway,
as she did theatre work in Connecticut and appeared in an off-Broadway
production of Pirandello's "Henry IV" opposite
Burgess Meredith and
Alida Valli. Legend wants that the show was
such a flop that the producer burned down the set designs. One year
later, a single meeting would change the young actress' life forever.
Delphine was starring in a production of
Henrik Ibsen's "An Enemy of the People"
when one very day she was approached by a very enthusiast spectator. It
was the great director Alain Resnais,
fresh of the huge personal triumph he had scored with his masterwork,
Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959).
Resnais was now trying to do a movie about the pulp magazine character
Harry Dickson (an American version of Sherlock Holmes) and thought that
Delphine could have played the role of the detective's nemesis,
Georgette Cuvelier/The Spider. The project would never see the light of
the day, but this meeting would soon lead to the genesis of an immortal
cinematic partnership. Delphine's first feature film was also done the
same year: it was the manifesto of the Beat Generation, the innovative
Pull My Daisy (1959). The 30
minutes film was written and narrated by
Jack Kerouac and featured an almost
entirely non-professional cast including poets
Allen Ginsberg,
Gregory Corso and
Peter Orlovsky along with painter
Larry Rivers. Delphine played
Rivers' wife in this well-done and interesting curio, an appropriate
starting point to a very intriguing and alternative career. In 1960 she
landed the role of Cara Williams
and Harry Morgan's French neighbour
in a new sitcom,
Pete and Gladys (1960).
Although she left the show after only three episodes, it is interesting
to see her interact with the likes of Williams, Morgan and
Cesar Romero, since they seem to
belong to such different worlds. This was going to be the end of
Delphine's journey in the States, although she would keep very fond
memories of this period, stating in 1969 that she didn't consider
herself "particularly French, but American in equal measure". In 1961
she would take her native France by storm.
Resnais had now been approached by writer
Alain Robbe-Grillet- one of the main
creators of the "Nouveau Roman" genre- to direct a movie based upon his
script "L'anneé dernière". Having been awed by the recent
Vertigo (1958), Robbe-Grillet was
nourishing the hope that Kim Novak
could have possibly played the mysterious female protagonist of the
upcoming adaptation of his novel. Luckily, Resnais had different plans.
Delphine was back in France for a holiday when the director offered her
the role of the enigmatic lady nicknamed A. in his latest movie,
Last Year at Marienbad (1961).
Delphine accepted and finally took her rightful place in film history.
The plot of the movie is apparently simple: in a baroque-looking
castle, X. (Giorgio Albertazzi) tries
to convince the reclusive A. that they had an affair the previous year.
The movie has been interpreted in many different ways: a ghost story, a
sci-fi story, an example of meta-theatre, a retelling of the myth of
Orpheus and Eurydice, a retelling of Pygmalion and the Statue and
plenty more. Resnais proved to be very partial to Delphine and didn't
want her to just stand there like a motionless mannequin like the
entire supporting cast did. As X. begins to instill or awake some
feelings and memories into A., Delphine subtly hints at a change
happening inside the character, managing to alternatively project an
image of innocence and desire in a brilliant way. With her stunning,
sphinx-like beauty being particularly highlighted by raven-black hair
(Resnais wanted her to look like
Louise Brooks in
Pandora's Box (1929))
and her warm, seductive voice completing the magical charm of the
character, Delphine made A. her most iconic-looking creation and got
immediately welcomed to the club of the greatest actresses of France.
The movie itself received the Golden Lion at Venice Film Festival and
remains Resnais' masterpiece, not to mention possibly the greatest son
of the French New Wave. The gothic organ music provided by Delphine's
brother Francis also played an important role in the success of
"Marienbad".
Like he had done a couple years before with
Emmanuelle Riva, Resnais had made
another invaluable gift to French cinema and one would have expected to
see Delphine immediately racking a dozen film projects after
"Marienbad", but for the time being she preferred to return to her
first love, the theatre. She always wished to avoid the perils of
celebrity and started a very turbulent relationship with reporters. She
made this statement on the subject: "There is nothing to say about an
actor or an actress. You just need to go and see them, that's all". She
also hated the fact that, after "Marienbad", many journalists had
paraphrased many of her statements in order to get meatier articles or
entirely made up stories about her. Her next film project came in 1963
when she was reunited with Resnais for the superb
Muriel (1963).
Wearing some makeup that made her look plainer and older, Delphine gave
a first sample of her chameleon-like abilities and one of her most
spectacular performances ever as Hélène Aughain, an apparently
absent-minded, but actually very tragic antique shop dealer who tries
to reshape her squalid present in order to get even with a past made of
shame and humiliation. Providing her character with a clumsy walk and
an odd behavior that looks amusing on the surface, she delegated her
subtlest facial expressions to hint at Hélène's grief and sense of
dissatisfaction, creating a very pathetic and moving figure in the
process. This incredible achievement was awarded with a Volpi cup at
Venice Film Festival. Delphine felt very proud for herself and for
Resnais. "Muriel" turned out to be one of the director's most divisive
works, with some people considering it his finest film and others
dismissing it as a product below his standard. The movie's American
reception was unfortunately disastrous: having been released in New
York disguised as an "even more mysterious sequel" to Marienbad, it
stayed in theaters for five days only. The same year, Delphine did a TV
movie called
Le troisième concerto (1963)
which marked her first collaboration with
Marcel Cravenne. Her performance as a
pianist who's seemingly losing her mind scored big with both critics
and audience and made her much more popular with the French public than
two rather inaccessible movies such as "Marienbad" and "Muriel" could
ever do. Delphine never considered herself a star though, stating that
"a star is like a racing horse a producer can place money on" and that
she wasn't anything like that. In the following years she kept doing
remarkable stage work. 1964 saw her first collaboration with
Samuel Beckett: she invited the great
author at her place in Place Des Vosges where she rehearsed for the
role of the Lover in the first French production of "Play" along with
Michael Lonsdale as the Husband and
Eléonore Hirt as the Wife. The three of
them would then bring the show to the stage and star in a film version
in 1966. Delphine would team up with Beckett on other occasions in the
future and even more frequently with Lonsdale, her co-star in several
films and stage productions. For two consecutive times she won the
"Prix Du Syndicat de la Critique" (the most ancient and illustrious
award given by French theatre critics) for Best Actress: in 1967
(1966/1967 season) for her performances in "Next Time I'll Sing to You"
and "To Find Oneself" and in 1969 (1968/1969 season) for her work in
L'Aide-mémoire. In 1966 she did a cameo in the surreal, Monty
Pythonesque
Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? (1966),
which was written and directed by
William Klein (her friend of about
20 years) and starred Sami Frey, who would be
her partner for her entire life after her separation from Youngerman.
In 1967, she had a few exquisitely acted scenes (all shot in one day
and a half) with Dirk Bogarde in
Joseph Losey's excellent
Accident (1967). Her appearance as
Bogarde's old flame seemed to echo and pay homage to "Marienbad", from
the almost illusory touch of the whole sequence to the suggestive use
of music by the great John Dankworth.
Delphine totally enjoyed to work with Losey, although their
relationship would drastically change by the time of their next
adventure together. The same year would also see the release of the
spellbinding The Music (1967), her
first filmed collaboration with
Marguerite Duras. The author had always
worshiped Delphine for her exceptional screen presence and for
possessing the aura of a classic goddess of the Golden Age of
Hollywood. She said about her: "When Delphine Seyrig moves into the
camera's field, there's a flicker of Garbo and Clara Bow and we look to
see if Cary Grant is at her side". She also loved her sexy voice,
stating that she always sounded like "she had just sucked a sweet fruit
and her mouth was still moist" and would go on to call her "the
greatest actress in France and possibly in the entire world". "La
Musica" isn't the most remembered Seyrig-Duras collaboration, but
nevertheless occupies a special place in history as the beginning of a
beautiful friendship between two artists that would become strictly
associated with each other for eternity. Delphine's performance won her
the "Étoile de Cristal" (the top film award given in France by the
"Académie Française" between 1955 and 1975 and later replaced by the
César). The actress later made a glorious Hedda Gabler for French
television, although she never much enjoyed to do work for this kind of
medium. She often complained about the poverty of means and little
professionalism of French TV and declined on several occasions the
possibility to play the role of Mme De Mortsauf in an adaptation of
Balzac's "Le lys dans la vallée". In 1968 she found one of her most
famous and celebrated roles in
François Truffaut's latest installment
of the Antoine Doinel saga,
Stolen Kisses (1968), which overall
qualifies as one of her most "traditional" career choices. Delphine's
new divine creature was Fabienne Tabard, the breathtakingly beautiful
wife of an obnoxious shoe store owner (Michael Lonsdale) and the latest
object of Antoine's attention. It is very interesting that, in the
movie, Antoine reads a copy of "Le lys dans la vallée" and compares
Fabienne to the novel's heroine. At one point, Delphine had almost
agreed to appear in the TV production on the condition that
Jean-Pierre Léaud would have played
the leading male role. She later inquired with Truffaut if he knew
about this by the time he had written the script, but he swore that it
was just a coincidence. In 1969 she declined the leading female role in
The Swimming Pool (1969) because she didn't
see anything interesting about it; this despite strong soliciting from
her close friend Jean Rochefort (whom she
nicknamed "Mon petit Jeannot"). At the time, it was considered almost
inconceivable to decline the chance of appearing in an
Alain Delon movie, but Delphine really
valued the power of saying "no" and the part went to
Romy Schneider instead. It
consequently came of great surprise when, the same year, she accepted
the role of Marie-Madeleine in William Klein's rather dated, but
somewhat charming Mr. Freedom (1968),
where she played most of her scenes semi-naked. But Delphine, as usual,
had her valid reasons to appear in this strong satire of American
Imperialism. Klein's comic strip adaptation isn't without its enjoyable
moments (like a scene where the Americans use a map to indicate the
Latin dictatorships as the civilized, democratic world), but goes on
for too long and suffers every time Delphine disappears from the
screen. Still, it remains a must for Seyrig fans, as you'd never expect
to see the most intellectual of actresses having a martial arts fight
with the gigantic John Abbey and giving a
performance of pure comic genius in the tradition of
Kay Kendall. The same year she also had a
cameo as the Prostitute in Luis Buñuel's
masterful The Milky Way (1969).
Delphine read the entire script, but eventually regretted that she
hadn't watched Alain Cuny playing his scene,
because, in that case, she would have played her own very differently
and brought the movie to full circle, something she thought she hadn't
done. She promised Buñuel to do better on the next occasion they would
have worked together.
In 1970, Delphine eventually agreed to appear in
Le lys dans la vallée (1970)
under the direction of Marcel Cravenne, although the male protagonist
wasn't played by Léaud, but by
Richard Leduc. It turned out to be one of
the best ever adaptations of a French classic and her performance was
titanic. She then played the Lilac Fairy in
Jacques Demy's lovely musical
Donkey Skin (1970), which starred a
young Catherine Deneuve in
the title role, but boosted a superlative supporting cast including
Jacques Perrin,
Micheline Presle,
Sacha Pitoëff and
Jean Marais (who sort of provided a
link with Jean Cocteau's
Beauty and the Beast (1946)).
Despite all this profusion of talent, Delphine effortlessly stole the
movie with her sassy smile, impeccable comedic timing and multi-colored
wardrobe. Although she would go on to sing on future occasions, Demy
preferred to have her musical number dubbed by
Christiane Legrand. The following
year, she won a new multitude of male admirers when she arguably played
the sexiest and most memorable female vampire in film history in the
underrated psychological horror
Daughters of Darkness (1971). The
choice of a niche actress like Delphine to play the lesbian,
Dietrichesque Countess Bathory is considered one of the main factors
that sets Harry Kümel's movie apart from the
coeval products made by the likes of
Jesús Franco or
Jean Rollin. To see another horror movie
highlighted by the presence of an unforgettable female vampire in
Seyrig style, one will have to wait for the similar casting of the
splendid Nina Hoss in the auteur effort
We Are the Night (2010).
Cravenne's Tartuffe (1971) was
a delicious "Jeu à Deux" between Delphine and the immense
Michel Bouquet. In 1972, Delphine would
add another immortal title to her filmography, as she was cast in Luis
Buñuel's surrealist masterpiece,
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972).
As the adulterous Simone Thévenot, always wearing a sanctimoniously
polite smile, she managed to give the star turn in a flawless cast:
Fernando Rey made his Rafael Acosta
deliciously nasty behind his cover of unflappability,
Paul Frankeur was hilariously obtuse as
M.Thévenot, Jean-Pierre Cassel
suitably ambiguous as M.Sénéchal,
Julien Bertheau looked charmingly
sinister as Mons.Dufour, Bulle Ogier got to
show her formidable gifts for physical comedy as Florence and the role
of Alice Sénéchal, a woman who gets annoyed at not getting coffee while
a man has just confessed to have murdered his father, proved for once
the perfect fit for the coldest and least emotional of actresses,
Stéphane Audran. The movie won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language
Film. The next year, Delphine appeared in a couple of star-studded
productions: she gave a brief, but memorably moving performance in
Fred Zinnemann's
The Day of the Jackal (1973)
as a French woman who makes the fatal mistake of falling for
Edward Fox's ruthless killer.
People's memories of the movie are often associated with her scenes.
She also appeared in Losey's disappointing
A Doll's House (1973)
opposite a badly miscast Jane Fonda as Nora.
The two actresses didn't get along with the director as they both
thought his vision of the story to be deeply misogynist. Many key
dialogues were unskillfully butchered for the adaptation, diminishing
the depth of the characters and the end result was consequently cold,
although the movie has its redeeming features. The brilliant
David Warner arguably remains the
definitive screen Torvald and Delphine is typically impeccable in the
fine role of Kristine, although one can't help but think that an
accomplished Ibsenian actress like her should have played Nora in the
first place. Although Losey wasn't in speaking terms with her any
longer by the time the shooting ended, Delphine befriended Jane as they
shared a lot of ideals and causes. Delphine Seyrig was of course a
vocal feminist, although she didn't consider herself a militant: she
actually believed that women should have already known their rights by
then and that she didn't have to cause any consciousness raising in
them. She would go on to work with more and more female directors
shortly after, considering also that she had now begun to love cinema
as much as theatre. In 1974 she appeared in a stage production of "La
Cheuvachée sur le lac de Constance" because she dearly desired to act
opposite the wonderful Jeanne Moreau, but
from that moment on, most of her energies were saved for film work. She
also grew more and more radical in picking up her projects:
Le journal d'un suicidé (1972),
Dites-le avec des fleurs (1974)
and Der letzte Schrei (1975)
certainly qualify as some of her oddest features, not to mention the
most difficult to watch.
Le cri du coeur (1974), although
flawed by an inept performance by Stéphane Audran, was slightly more
interesting: the director capitalized on Delphine's Marienbad image
once again, casting her as a mysterious woman the crippled young
protagonist gets sexually obsessed with. She made another relatively
"ordinary" pick by playing villainous in
Don Siegel's remarkable spy thriller
The Black Windmill (1974)
alongside stellar performers like
Michael Caine,
Donald Pleasence,
John Vernon and
Janet Suzman.
The following year, Delphine had two first rate roles in
Le jardin qui bascule (1975)
and in Liliane de Kermadec's
Aloïse (1975) (where her younger self was
played, quite fittingly, by an already prodigious
Isabelle Huppert). But 1975 wasn't over
for Delphine as the thespian would round off the year with two of her
most amazing achievements. The Seyrig/Duras team did finally spring
into action again with the memorable
India Song (1975), another movie which
lived and died entirely on Delphine's intense face. Laure Adler wrote
these pertinent words in her biography of Duras: "In India Song we see
nothing of Calcutta, all we see is a woman dancing in the drawing room
of the French embassy and that is enough, for Delphine fills the
screen". Coming next was what many people consider the actress' most
monumental personal achievement:
Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975).
It has become a common saying that, when you have a great interest in
an actor, you could watch him/her reading the phone book. Seyrig fans
can experiment it almost literally in
Chantal Akerman's three hour minimalist
masterpiece, which meticulously follows the daily routine of widowed
housewife Jeanne. Akerman chose Delphine "because she brought with her
all the roles of mythical woman that she played until now. The woman in
Marienbad, The woman in India Song". The movie can be considered a
filmed example of "Nouveau Roman": every moment of Jeanne's day is
presented almost real-time -from the act of peeling potatoes or washing
dishes- and every gesture has a precise meaning, like Jeanne's
incapacity of putting her life together being expressed by her
inability of making a decent coffee or put buttons back on a shirt. The
movie is also of course a feminist declaration: Jeanne regularly
resorts to prostitution to make a living, which (according to Akerman)
symbolizes that, even after the death of her husband, she's still
dependant of him and always needs to have a male figure enter her life
in his place. Her declaration of independence is expressed at the end
of the movie through the murder of one of her clients. Delphine's
approach to the role was as natural as possible and she completely
disappeared into it, giving a hypnotic performance that keeps the
viewer glued to his chair and prevents him to feel the sense of boredom
every actress short of extraordinary would have induced. It's
considered one of the greatest examples of acting ever recorded by a
camera and possibly the definitive testament to Delphine's abilities.
By now she was being referred as France's greatest actress with the
same frequency Michel Piccoli was called
the greatest actor. 1976 saw the the Césars replacing the "Étoiles de
Cristal" and Delphine was nominated for "India Song", but she lost to
Romy Schneider for her work in
That Most Important Thing: Love (1975)
by Andrzej Zulawski. The same year also
saw her getting behind the camera as she directed
Scum Manifesto (1976), a short
where she read the Valerie Solanas text
by the same name. She also starred in Duras' new version of "India
Song",
Her Venetian Name in Deserted Calcutta (1976)
(where the setting was changed to the desert) and headlined the cast of
Mario Monicelli's
Caro Michele (1976). In 1977 she
traveled to the UK to shoot an episode of
BBC Play of the Month (1965).
She stated her great admiration for British TV as opposed to French TV,
congratulating BBC for its higher production values and for its major
respect for the material it used to produce. Thinking retrospectively
about the whole thing, these sentiments seem rather misplaced, since
BBC erased tons of programs from existence in order to make room in the
storage and for other reasons, but fortunately "The Ambassadors" wasn't
part of the slaughter. Like
Henry James's story, the cast
featured some veritable cultural ambassadors as three different nations
offered one of their most talented thespians ever:
Paul Scofield represented England,
Lee Remick represented United States and
Delphine represented France as Madame De Vionnet.
Baxter, Vera Baxter (1977)
marked her final and most forgettable film collaboration with Duras. In
Faces of Love (1977), she played the
drug-addicted ex-wife of a director (a typically outstanding Jean-Louis
Trintignant) who summons her along with two other actresses to shoot a
film version of "The Three Sisters". She was again nominated for a
César, but the sentimentality factor played in favor of
Simone Signoret's performance in
Moshé Mizrahi's award-friendly
Madame Rosa (1977), which
won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film two months later. Mizrahi
later cast both actresses in his subsequent feature,
I Sent a Letter to My Love (1980), also
starring Jean Rochefort. This bittersweet feature proved much better
than the director's previous work: Signoret and Rochefort gave great
performances, but, once again, Delphine was best in show as a naive,
hare-brained woman so much different from her usual characters and gave
another confirmation of her phenomenal range. She was nominated for
another César in the supporting actress category, but lost to
Nathalie Baye for
Every Man for Himself (1980).
It's ironic that, despite being considered the nation's top actress by
so many people, Delphine never won a César. One theory is that she had
alienated many voters (particularly the older ones) by often dismissing
50's French cinema and regularly comparing French actors unfavorably to American ones, just like many New Wave authors (Jean-Luc Godard,
Claude Chabrol,
Éric Rohmer,
Jacques Rivette) had done back in the
days when they worked as critics for the "Cahiérs Du Cinema" and none
of them ever won a César either (or at least not a competitive one).
This along with having made many enemies because of her vocally
feminist attitude of course. She once stated herself that many people
in France probably disliked her because she was always saying what she
thought.
In the 80's, Delphine appeared in three stage plays that were later
filmed: La Bête dans la Jungle (a Duras adaptation of the Henry James
novel), "Letters Home" (about the poet Sylvia Plath) and "Sarah et le
cri de la langouste" (where she played the legendary Sarah Bernhardt).
She scored a particular success with the latter and won the "Prix Du
Syndicat de la Critique" for a record third time, more than any other
actress (Michel Bouquet is her male counterpart with three Best Actor
wins). In 1981, she directed a feminist documentary,
Sois belle et tais-toi! (1981),
where she interviewed many actresses, including her friend Jane Fonda,
about their role (sometimes purely decorative) in the male-dominated
film industry. In 1982 she co-founded the
Simone De Beauvoir audiovisual centre
along with Carole Roussopoulos and
Ioana Wieder. A final collaboration with
Chantal Akerman, the innovative musical
Golden Eighties (1986), allowed
her to do what she couldn't do in "Peau d'âne" and give a very moving
rendition of a beautiful song. Avant-garde German director
Ulrike Ottinger provided Delphine with
some unforgettable and appropriately weird roles in three of her
features: multiple characters in
Freak Orlando (1981), the only
female incarnation of Dr.Mabuse in
Dorian Gray in the Mirror of the Yellow Press (1984)
(opposite
Veruschka von Lehndorff, playing
the title role 'en travesti') and Lady Windermere in
Joan of Arc of Mongolia (1989).
She gave a final, stunning TV performance in
Une saison de feuilles (1989)
as an actress suffering from Alzheimer's disease and won a 7 d'or (a
French Emmy) for it. Her mature turn as a woman who's reaching the end
of the line looks particularly poignant now, as it has the bitter taste
of a tear-eyed farewell. A woman of extraordinary courage, Delphine had
been secretly battling lung cancer (she had always been a chain smoker)
for a few years, but, because of her supreme professionalism, she had
never neglected a work commitment because of that. Only her closest
friends knew. It became evident that there was no hope left when, in
September 1990, she had do withdraw her participation from a production
of Peter Shaffer's "Lettice and Lovage"
with Jean-Louis Barrault and
Madeleine Renaud's theatre company. One
month later she tragically lost her battle with cancer and died in
hospital, leaving an unbridgeable void in the acting world and in the
lives of many. Tributes flew in torrents, with
Jean-Claude Brialy hosting a
particularly touching memorial where Jeanne Moreau read some very
heartfelt phrases come from the pen of Marguerite Duras to honour the
memory of her muse. In the decade following Delphine's death, many of
her features unfortunately didn't prove to have much staying power
-being so unique and destined to a very selected and elitist audience-
and plenty of people began to forget about the actress. Delphine's good
friend, director Jacqueline Veuve,
thought this unacceptable and she saw to do something about it,
shooting a documentary called
Delphine Seyrig, portrait d'une comète (2000),
which premiered at Locarno film festival. This partially helped to
renew the actress' cult and to expand it to several other followers.
Similar retrospectives at the Modern Art Museum in New York and at the
La Rochelle Film Festival hopefully served the same purpose as well.
One can also hope that the French Academy (Académie des arts et
techniques du cinéma) would start to make amends for past sins by
awarding Delphine a posthumous César: since the immortal
Jean Gabin received one in 1987, who could
possibly make a likelier pair with him?- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Agnès Varda was born on 30 May 1928 in Ixelles, Belgium. She was a director and writer, known for Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Vagabond (1985) and Faces Places (2017). She was married to Jacques Demy. She died on 29 March 2019 in Paris, France.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Admirers have always had difficulty explaining
Éric Rohmer's "Je ne sais quoi." Part of the
challenge stems from the fact that, despite his place in French
Nouvelle Vague (i.e., New Wave), his work is unlike that of his
colleagues. While this may be due to the auteur's unwillingness to
conform, some have argued convincingly that, in truth, he has remained
more faithful to the original ideals of the movement than have his
peers. Additionally, plot is not his foremost concern. It is the
thoughts and emotions of his characters that are essential to Rohmer,
and, just as one's own states of being are hard to define, so is the
internal life of his art. Thus, rather than speaking of it in specific
terms, fans often use such modifiers as "subtle," "witty," "delicious"
and "enigmatic." In an interview with
Dennis Hopper,
Quentin Tarantino echoed what nearly
every aficionado has uttered: "You have to see one of [his movies], and
if you kind of like that one, then you should see his other ones, but
you need to see one to see if you like it."
Detractors have no problem in expressing their displeasure. They use
such phrases as "tedious like a classroom play," "arty and tiresome"
and "donnishly talky." Gene Hackman, as
jaded detective Harry Moseby in
Night Moves (1975), delivered a now
famous line that sums up these feelings: "I saw a Rohmer film once. It
was kind of like watching paint dry." Undeniably, his excruciatingly
slow pace and apathetic, self-absorbed characters are hallmarks, and,
at times, even his greatest supporters have made trenchant remarks in
this regard. Said critic Pauline Kael,
"Seriocomic triviality has become Rohmer's specialty. His sensibility
would be easier to take if he'd stop directing to a metronome." In that
his proponents will quote attacks on him, indeed Rohmer may be alone
among directors. They revel in the fact that "nothing of consequence"
happens in his pictures. They are mesmerized by the dense blocks of
high-brow chatter. They delight in the predictability of his aesthetic.
Above all, however, they are touched by the honesty of a man who,
uncompromisingly, lays bear the human soul and "life as such."
Who is Eric Rohmer? Born Jean-Marie Maurice Scherer on December 1, 1920
in Nancy, a small city in Lorraine, he relocated to Paris and became a
literature teacher and newspaper reporter. In 1946, under the pen name
Gilbert Cordier, he published his only novel, "Elizabeth". Soon after,
his interest began to shift toward criticism, and he began frequenting
Cinémathèque Français (founded by archivist
Henri Langlois) along with soon-to-be New
Wavers Jean-Luc Godard,
Jacques Rivette,
Claude Chabrol and
François Truffaut. It was at this time
that he adopted his pseudonym, an amalgam of the names of
actor/director Erich von Stroheim and
novelist Sax Rohmer (author of the Fu Manchu
series.) His first film,
Journal d'un scélérat (1950),
was shot the same year that he founded "Gazette du Cinema" along with
Godard and Rivette. The next year, Rohmer joined seminal critic
André Bazin at "Cahiers du Cinema", where he
served as editor-in-chief from 1956 to 1963. As Cahiers was an
influential publication, it not only gave him a platform from which to
preach New Wave philosophy, but it enabled him to propose revisionist
ideas on Hollywood. An example of the latter was "Hitchcock, The First
Forty-Four Films", a book on which he collaborated with Chabrol that
spoke of Alfred Hitchcock in
highly favorable terms.
Rohmer's early forays into direction met with limited success. By 1958,
he had completed five shorts, but his sole attempt at feature length, a
version of La Comtesse de Ségur's "Les Petites filles modèles", was
left unfinished. With
Sign of the Lion (1962), he made
his feature debut, although it was a decade before he achieved
recognition. In the interim, he turned out eleven projects, including
three of his "Six contes moraux" (i.e., moral tales), films devoted to
examining the inner states of people in the throes of temptation.
The Bakery Girl of Monceau (1963)
and
Suzanne's Career (1963)
are unremarkable black-and-white pictures that best function as
blueprints for his later output. They also mark the beginning of a
business partnership with
Barbet Schroeder, who starred in the
former of the two.
The Collector (1967), his
first major effort in color, has been mistaken for a Lolita movie; on a
deeper plane, it questions the manner in which one collects or rejects
experience. Rohmer's first "hit" was
My Night at Maud's (1969), which
was nominated for two Oscars and won several international awards. It
continues to be his best-known work. In it, on the eve of a proclaiming
his love to Francoise, his future wife, the narrator spends a night
with a pretty divorcée named Maud. Along with a friend, the two have a
discussion on life, religion and Pascal's wager (i.e., the necessity of
risking all on the only bet that can win.) Left alone with the sensual
Maud, the narrator is forced to test his principles. The final parts in
the series,
Claire's Knee (1970) and
Love in the Afternoon (1972)
are mid-life crisis tales that cleverly reiterate the notion of
self-restraint as the path to salvation.
"Comedies et Proverbs," Rohmer's second cycle, deals with deception.
The Aviator's Wife (1981)
is the story a naïve student who suspects his girlfriend of infidelity.
In stalking her ex-lover and ultimately confronting her, we discover
the levels on which he is deceiving himself. Another masterpiece is
Pauline at the Beach (1983), a
seaside film about adolescents' coming-of-age and the childish antics
of their adult chaperones. Of the remaining installments,
The Green Ray (1986) and
Boyfriends and Girlfriends (1987) are
the most appealing. The director's last series is known as "Contes des
quatre saisons" (i.e., Tales of the Four Seasons), which too presents
the dysfunctional relationships of eccentrics. In place of the social
games of "Comedies et Proverbs", though, this cycle explores the lives
of the emotionally isolated.
A Tale of Springtime (1990) and
A Tale of Winter (1992) are the more
inventive pieces, the latter revisiting Ma Nuit chez Maud's "wager."
Just as his oeuvre retraces itself thematically, Rohmer populates it
with actors who appear and reappear in unusual ways. The final tale,
Autumn Tale (1998), brings
together his favorite actresses,
Marie Rivière and
Béatrice Romand. Like "hiver," it
hearkens back to a prior project,
A Good Marriage (1982), in
examining Romand's quest to find a husband.
Since 1976, Rohmer has made various non-serial releases.
Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle (1987)
and
Rendez-vous in Paris (1995),
both composed of vignettes, are tongue-in-cheek morality plays that
merit little attention. The lush costume drama
The Marquise of O (1976),
in contrast, is an excellent study of the absurd formalities of 18th
century aristocracy and was recognized with the Grand Prize of the Jury
at Cannes. His other period pieces, regrettably, have not been as
successful.
Perceval (1978),
while original, is a failed experiment in stagy Arthurian storytelling,
and the beautifully dull
The Lady and the Duke (2001)
is equally unsatisfying for most fans of his oeuvre. Nonetheless, the
director has demonstrated incredible consistency, and that he was able
to deliver a picture of this caliber so late in his career is
astounding. The legacy that this man has bestowed upon us rivals that
of any auteur, with arguably as many as ten tours de force over the
last four decades. Why, then, is he the least honored among the ranks
of the Nouvelle Vague and among all cinematic geniuses?
Stories of Rohmer's idiosyncrasies abound. An ardent environmentalist,
he has never driven a car and refuses to ride in taxis. There is no
telephone in his home. He delayed the production of Ma Nuit chez Maud
for a year, insisting that certain scenes could only be shot on
Christmas night. Once, he requested a musical score that could be
played at levels inaudible to viewers. He refers to himself as
"commercial," yet his movies turn slim profits playing the art house
circuit. Normally, these are kinds of anecdotes that would endear a one
with the cognoscenti. His most revealing quirk, however, is that he
declines interviews and shuns the spotlight. Where Hitchcock, for
instance, was always ready to talk shop, Rohmer has let his films speak
for themselves. He is not worried about WHAT people think of them but
THAT, indeed, they think.
It would be dangerous to supplant the aforementioned "je ne sais quoi"
with words. Without demystifying Rohmer's cinema, still there are broad
qualities to which one may point. First, it is marked by philosophical
and artistic integrity. Long before
Krzysztof Kieslowski, Rohmer came
up with the concept of the film cycle, and this has permitted him to
build on his own work in a unique manner. A devout Catholic, he is
interested in the resisting of temptation, and what does not occur in
his pieces is just as intriguing as what occurs. Apropos to the mention
of his spirituality is his fascination with the interplay between
destiny and free will. Some choice is always central to his stories.
Yet, while his narrative is devoid of conventionally dramatic events,
he shows a fondness for coincidence bordering on the supernatural. In
order to maintain verisimilitude, then, he employs more "long shots"
and a simpler, more natural editing process than his contemporaries. He
makes infrequent use of music and foley, focusing instead on the sounds
of voices. Of these voices, where his narrators are male (and it is
ostensibly their subjective experience to which we are privy), his
women are more intelligent and complex than his men. Finally, albeit
deeply contemplative, Rohmer's work is rarely conclusive. Refreshingly
un-Hollywood, rather than providing an escape from reality, it compels
us to face the world in which we live.- Director
- Writer
- Actress
Chantal Akerman was born on 6 June 1950 in Brussels, Belgium. She was a director and writer, known for The Meetings of Anna (1978), I, You, He, She (1974) and A Couch in New York (1996). She was married to Sonia Wieder-Atherton. She died on 5 October 2015 in Paris, France.- Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Tall, bearded, heavy-set Anglo-French character actor, best known internationally for playing Deputy Commissioner Claude Lebel in The Day of the Jackal (1973) and Bond villain Hugo Drax in Moonraker (1979). The son of an English army officer (Edward Lonsdale-Crouch) and a Franco-Irish mother (Simone Béraud), he was born in Paris and spent his early childhood in England. The family moved to Morocco in 1939 where Edward found work in the fertilizer trade (he was later imprisoned by the Vichy government for political reasons). Michael returned to France in 1947 where he met actor/director Roger Blin who awakened his interest in the dramatic arts. Following acting studies, Michael made his theatrical debut at 24 and appeared on screen for the first time a year later, for much of his career billed as 'Michel' Lonsdale. Having toiled for over a decade in smallish supporting roles, he received his first major critical acclaim in two films by François Truffaut (The Bride Wore Black (1968) and Stolen Kisses (1968)). Though primarily active in French cinema, the bilingual Lonsdale made occasional (but often memorable) forays into English-language productions, his first as a reporter in Fred Zinnemann's Behold a Pale Horse (1964). Subsequent parts have included a titled landowner who sets in motion the Caravan to Vaccares (1974), a CIA agent in Enigma (1982) and a Swiss banker in The Holcroft Covenant (1985). James Ivory cast him in two of his films consecutively as a French delegate in The Remains of the Day (1993) and as King Louis XVI in Jefferson in Paris (1995). Lonsdale also had a prominent role as The Abbot who commissions the Franciscan friar William of Baskerville (Sean Connery) to investigate the murder of a monk in Jean-Jacques Annaud's Italian-German-French co-production of Umberto Eco's novel The Name of the Rose (1986) . By and large, it is for his powerhouse performance as Roger Moore's megalomaniacal antagonist Sir Hugo Drax in Moonraker for which Lonsdale is likely to be most remembered. He received a BAFTA nomination for his role in The Day of the Jackal but only achieved major acting honors in 2011, winning a César Award as best supporting actor for Of Gods and Men (2010).
Lonsdale's career could well be described as eclectic. In 1972, he co-founded (with French composer Michel Puig) the Théâtre musical des Ulis, a musical theater company which was subsidised by the French government. The soft-spoken actor also lent his voice to radio recordings and audio books. He had a reputation as a painter of some renown and authored or co-authored more than twenty works of fiction and non-fiction.- Actress
- Writer
- Director
Born in Denmark, she came to Paris at 18. She met Coco Chanel and Pierre Cardin and started as a top model. She met Jean-Luc Godard about a cameo in
Breathless (1960), but she had to be naked and she refused to play in the movie. One year later, they wed and she became famous with the "Nouvelle Vague" movies directed by him, Jacques Rivette, and Agnès Varda.
In 1967, Serge Gainsbourg wrote his
only film musical Anna (1967) for
her, with the hit "Sous le soleil exactement". Then, she went to Hollywood for a few movies and came back to Paris. She wrote and
directed Vivre ensemble (1973) after her divorce from Pierre Fabre. She later remarried, to Dennis Berry.- Writer
- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Robert Bresson trained as a painter before moving into films as a
screenwriter, making a short film (atypically a comedy), Public Affairs (1934) in
1934. After spending more than a year as a German POW during World War
II, he made his debut with Angels of Sin (1943) in 1943. His next film, The Ladies of the Bois de Boulogne (1945)
would be the last time he would work with professional actors. From
Journal d'un cure de campagne (1951) (aka "Diary of a Country Priest") onwards, he created a unique
minimalist style in which all but the barest essentials are omitted
from the film (often, crucial details are only given in the
soundtrack), with the actors (he calls them "models") giving
deliberately flat, expressionless performances. It's a demanding and
difficult, intensely personal style, which means that his films never
achieved great popularity (it was rare for him to make more than one
film every five years), but he has a fanatical following among critics,
who rate him as one of the greatest artists in the history of the
cinema. He retired in the 1980s, after failing to raise the money for a
long-planned adaptation of the Book of Genesis.- Princess Diana was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, and the mother of Prince William and Prince Harry. Diana's activism and glamour made her an international icon and earned her an enduring popularity.
Diana was born into the British nobility and grew up close to the royal family on their Sandringham estate. She did not distinguish herself academically, but was talented in music, dance, and sports.
Diana came to prominence in 1981 upon her engagement to Prince Charles, the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II, after a brief courtship. Their wedding took place at St Paul's Cathedral in 1981 and made her Princess of Wales, a role in which she was enthusiastically received by the public. The couple had two sons, the princes William and Harry, who were then second and third in the line of succession to the British throne. The couple separated in 1992, soon after the breakdown of their relationship became public knowledge. The details of their marital difficulties became increasingly publicized, and the marriage ended in divorce in 1996.
As Princess of Wales, Diana undertook royal duties on behalf of the Queen and represented her at functions across the Commonwealth realms. She was celebrated in the media for her unconventional approach to charity work. Her patronages initially centered on children and youth but she later became known for her involvement with AIDS patients and campaign for the removal of landmines. She also raised awareness and advocated ways to help people affected with cancer and mental illness. Considered to be very photogenic, she was a leader of fashion in the 1980s and 1990s. Media attention and public mourning were extensive after her death in a car crash in a Paris tunnel in 1997 and televised funeral. Her legacy has had a deep impact on the royal family and British society. - Writer
- Actor
- Director
The comic genius Jacques Tati was born Taticheff, descended from a
noble Russian family. His grandfather, Count Dimitri, had been a
general in the Imperial Army and had served as military attaché to the
Russian Embassy in Paris. His father, Emmanuel Taticheff, was a
well-to-do picture framer who conducted his business in the fashionable
Rue de Castellane and had taken a Dutch-Italian woman, Marcelle Claire
van Hoof, as his wife. To Emmanuel's lasting dismay, Jacques had no
intention of following in the family trade of framing and restoration.
Instead, he went on to pursue an education (specialising in arts and
engineering) at the military academy of Lycée de Saint Germain-en-laye.
After graduating, his main preoccupation became sports. He already
boxed and played tennis and was introduced to rugby during a sojourn in
London. Back in Paris, he joined the Racing Club de France (1925-30),
and for some time seriously contemplated a career as a professional
rugby player. However, Jacques also had an uncanny talent for
pantomime, imitating athletes at his school to the amusement of
classmates and teachers. By the time he had reached the age of 24,
encouraged by his success as an entertainer in the annual revue of the
Racing Club, he suddenly decided to combine his two passions and,
without further ado, entered the world of show business.
From 1931, Jacques toured the Parisian music halls, theatres and
circuses with his impersonations, acrobatics, drunk waiter and comic
tennis routines (the latter would be famously re-enacted by his alter
ego, Monsieur Hulot). He had by this time changed his name to 'Tati' in
order to accommodate theatre bills.The French magazine "Le Jour" was
among the first to acknowledge his growing popularity, describing
Jacques as "a clown of great talent". At the same time, he made his
screen debut in a series of short featurettes, tailored to show off his
practised gags, notably
Oscar, champion de tennis (1932)
and Watch Your Left (1936)
("Watch your left", a very funny boxing sketch). The Second World War,
military service and inherent strictures resulting from the German
occupation put a temporary halt to his career. Then, in 1946, through a
friend, the writer-director
Claude Autant-Lara, Jacques obtained
a small role in the whimsical fantasy
Sylvie et le fantôme (1946),
about a girl (Odette Joyeux) in love with
a ghost (Tati).
The small township of Sainte-Sévère, where Tati had taken refuge during
the occupation, served as inspiration for his first film, initially
conceived as a one-reeler entitled "L'Ecole des facteurs" (School for
Postmen). Unable to find widespread distribution, Tati decided to
re-shoot the bucolic comedy --with himself in the central role -- as a
feature film, using the villagers as extras and filming everything on
location. And thus,
Jour de Fête (1949) and Francois the
village postman came into being. However, the film was soon
overshadowed by his next enterprise and a critic of the satirical
publication Le Canard Enchainé even proposed to fight a duel with
anyone who would prefer "Jour de Fete" to
Monsieur Hulot's Holiday (1953)!
With "Holiday", Tati reinvented the visual comedy of the silent era in
a style not dissimilar to that of
Max Linder. There is hardly any
dialogue, except for background chatter, but natural and human noises
are enhanced whenever required for the desired comic effect. The film
is almost plotless, essentially comprised of a series of vignettes (to
the recurring musical motif of
Alain Romans's breezy 1952 composition
"Quel temps fait-il à Paris?") at a seaside resort frequented by
assorted holiday makers. All are stereotypical of their respective
social class, as are the villagers themselves. Their inability to
escape social conditioning and the stress they endure in the process of
'enjoying themselves' are observed with a keen satirical eye through
their interaction with each other. At the centre is the ever-present
character of the bumbling Monsieur Hulot, who arrives in a rickety 1924
Amilcar. Tall and reedy, clad in a poplin coat, wearing a crumpled hat,
striped socks, trousers which are patently too short, rolled umbrella,
a pipe firmly clenched between his teeth and perambulating with an odd
stiff-legged gait, Hulot cuts an ungainly, yet hilarious figure.
Well-meaning though he is, he invariably leaves disaster in his wake
and departs the scene quickly as things go wrong, letting others sort
out the mess. "Holiday" is more than just a brilliant collection of
sight gags, but also an ironic observation of the foibles of human
nature. Tati acknowledged the influence of both
Buster Keaton and
W.C. Fields in the creation of Hulot. Very
much like Keaton or Charles Chaplin, he
was also a consummate perfectionist who micro-managed each scene with
unerring precision. Comedy for Tati was a serious business.
In Tati's subsequent ventures, Hulot became relegated from being the
focus of the story to merely subordinate to its concept. As just one of
many characters, Hulot weaves in and out of
My Uncle (1958) and
Playtime (1967), his simple,
old-fashioned world contrasted sharply against the coldness of
mechanisation, obsessive consumerism and the growing uniformity of
houses and cities. "Playtime", shot in 70mm, took six years to make and
required the creation of a massive glass and concrete high-rise set
with myriad corridors and cubicles (dubbed 'Tativille' and built at a
cost of $800,000) which raised the picture's total budget to $3 million
and left Tati bankrupt. His next project,
Trafic (1971), a satire of modern man's
love of cars, failed to recoup these losses. Creditors impounded Tati's
films, which were not re-released until 1977, when a canny Parisian
distributor expunged his outstanding debts. Throughout his career, Tati
remained obdurately committed to his artistic integrity and to his
independence as a film maker. He was one of few directors who
consistently employed non-professional actors. He turned down offers
from Hollywood for a 15-minute series of television comedies, following
the success of "Mon Oncle". He summed it all up by declaring "I could
have satisfied the producers of the world by making a whole series of
little Hulot films, and I would have made a lot of money. But I would
not have been able to do what I like - work freely". (NY Times,
November 6, 1982)- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Claude Chabrol was born on 24 June 1930 in Paris, France. He was a director and writer, known for Le Beau Serge (1958), La Cérémonie (1995) and Story of Women (1988). He was married to Aurore Chabrol, Stéphane Audran and Agnès Goute. He died on 12 September 2010 in Paris, France.- Additional Crew
- Producer
Dodi Fayed was born on 15 April 1955 in Alexandria, Egypt. He was a producer, known for Chariots of Fire (1981), Hook (1991) and F/X (1986). He was married to Susanne Gregard. He died on 31 August 1997 in Paris, France.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Before Arlette-Leonie Bathiat went to the movies she was a secretary
and had posed several times as a model for different painters and
photographers. In 1920 she debuted on stage at a theatre. She only
began to work in movies after 1930. After World War II she was
condemned to prison for having been the lover of a German official
during the ocupation of France. In 1963 she had an accident which left
her almost blind. Her most important movies were filmed and directed by
Marcel Carné ("Hotel du Nord (1938)" or "Enfants du Paradis, Les
(1945)").- Actress
- Music Department
Catherine Jourdan was born on 12 October 1948 in Azay-le-Rideau, Indre-et-Loire, France. She was an actress, known for The Samurai (1967), The Leatherstocking Tales (1969) and Vortex (1976). She died on 18 February 2011 in Paris, France.- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Maurice Chevalier's first working job was as an acrobat, until a
serious accident ended that career. He turned his talents to singing
and acting, and made several short films in France. During World War I
he enlisted in the French army. He was wounded in battle, captured and
placed in a POW camp by the Germans. During his captivity he learned
English from fellow prisoners. After the war he returned to the film
business, and when "talkies" came into existence, Chevalier traveled to
the US to break into Hollywood. In 1929 he was paired with operatic
singer/actress Jeanette MacDonald to
make The Love Parade (1929).
Although Chevalier was attracted to the beautiful MacDonald and made
several passes at her, she rejected him firmly, as she had designs on
actor Gene Raymond, who she eventually
married. He did not take rejection lightly, being a somewhat vain man
who considered himself quite a catch, and derided MacDonald as a
"prude". She, in turn, called him "the quickest derrière pincher in
Hollywood". They made three more pictures together, the most successful
being Love Me Tonight (1932). In
the late 1930s he returned to Europe, making several films in France
and England. World War II interrupted his career and he was dogged by
accusations of collaboration with the Nazi authorities occupying
France, but he was later vindicated. In the 1950s he returned to
Hollywood, older and gray-headed. He made Gigi (1958), from which he took his
signature songs, "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" and "I Remember it
Well". He also received a special Oscar that year. In the 1960s he made
a few more films, and in 1970 he sang the title song for
Walt Disney's The Aristocats (1970). This marked
his last contribution to the film industry.- Bruno Cremer went to Paris following high school. He always knew he was
made to be an actor and his mother helped him. He was admitted to the
Paris Conservatory. He rose to prominence in the theater playing in
Shakespeare's "Pericles," Oscar Wilde's "An Ideal Husband" and Jean
Anouilh's "Poor Bitos" and "Becket."
He has appeared in dozens of films, including The 317th Platoon, Is
Paris Burning?, William Friedkin's Sorcerer and Bertrand Blier's
Ménage. Cremer also appeared in over fifty television movies as the
popular Commissaire Jules Maigret. In 2000, he wrote his memoirs in "Un
certain jeune homme". - Olga Georges-Picot was born on 6 January 1940 in Shanghai, China. She was an actress, known for The Day of the Jackal (1973), Love and Death (1975) and I Love You, I Love You (1968). She was married to Jean Sobieski. She died on 19 June 1997 in Paris, France.
- Writer
- Director
- Actor
Roger Vadim was born on 26 January 1928 in Paris, France. He was a writer and director, known for Barbarella (1968), The Game Is Over (1966) and No Sun in Venice (1957). He was married to Marie-Christine Barrault, Catherine Schneider, Jane Fonda, Annette Stroyberg and Brigitte Bardot. He died on 11 February 2000 in Paris, France.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Lucy Gordon was born on 22 May 1980 in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Spider-Man 3 (2007), The Four Feathers (2002) and Serendipity (2001). She died on 20 May 2009 in Paris, France.- Actress
- Writer
- Director
Zoe Lund was born Zoe Tamerlis to a Swedish mother and Romanian father on February 9, 1962 in New York City. She was an accomplished composer/musician and devout political activist at an early age. In 1981 at age 19, Lund gave a stunning performance as Thana, a mousy, mute garment worker and rape victim who violently strikes back against male oppression and exploitation of women in Abel Ferrara's outstanding distaff vigilante cult classic Ms .45 (1981). She was likewise excellent and impressive in a demanding dual role as both a murdered aspiring Southern Belle actress and the lookalike New York woman who was used to replace her in Larry Cohen's nifty thriller Special Effects (1984). From 1980 to 1985, Lund lived and worked with critic and filmmaker Edouard de Laurot. She did a guest spot on an episode of Miami Vice (1984) and appeared as herself in the racy documentary Heavy Petting (1989).
Lund co-wrote the script for and had a supporting role as a drug addict in Ferrara's crime drama Bad Lieutenant (1992). Lund was a
staunch advocate of heroin drug use. In addition, she was a professional model in her 20s and a writer who penned various essays,
short stories, novels and film scripts (one of these unfinished screenplays was about supermodel Gia Carangi; Lund appears as an interview subject in the documentary The Self-Destruction of Gia (2003) (in which she candidly discusses her own heroin use). In 1993, Lund wrote, directed and starred in the one and a half minute short feature Hot Ticket (1993). Zoe Lund was working on a short story anthology when she died of drug-related heart failure at the tragically young age of 37 in Paris, France on April 16, 1999.- Director
- Actor
- Producer
Georges Méliès was a French illusionist and film director famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema.
Méliès was an especially prolific innovator in the use of special effects, popularizing such techniques as substitution splices, multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted color.
His films include A Trip to the Moon (1902) and An Impossible Voyage (1904), both involving strange, surreal journeys somewhat in the style of Jules Verne, and are considered among the most important early science fiction films.
Méliès died of cancer on 21 January 1938 at the age of 76.
In 2016, a Méliès film long thought lost, A Wager Between Two Magicians, or, Jealous of Myself (1904), was discovered in a Czechoslovak film archive.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
He made his movie debut at the invitation of Gene Kelly, who cast Cassel
in the 1956 Paris-filmed seriocomedy The Happy Road (1957). At least, that's what the
press releases claimed; actually, the tall, elastic-faced Cassel had
been plugging away in films on a minor basis since 1950. Shortly after,
Cassel was perfectly cast in the naif title role in the 1958 film
version of Voltaire's Candide. He has since been a stalwart in the
comedies of director Philippe de Broca, nearly always playing latter-day
variations of the ingenuous Candide. Since this time, he is the
screen-lover of some of the best actresses like Jean Seberg, Brigitte Bardot,
Claude Jade, Catherine Deneuve, Stéphane Audran or Marie Dubois. He played in Gérard Brach's The Boat on the Grass (1971)
(1970) with Claude Jade and John McEnery. In 1974, Jean-Pierre Cassel added
thousands of American filmgoers to his fan following with his
appearances as the bumbling King Louis XIII in Richard Lester's The Three Musketeers (1973) and
The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge (1974).- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Writer
Philippe Noiret was one of French cinema's most familiar faces who
appeared in more than 140 films in a career that spanned more than half
a century.
He was born on October 1, 1930, in Lille, Nord, France, into a middle
class family of shopkeepers. His father was fond of literature. Young
Noiret attended the College Janson-of-Sally in the 16th arrondissement
in Paris. At school, he was more interested in acting than in
academics; he failed to pass his baccalaureate exams three times and
left school without graduation. He studied acting at the Centre
Dramatique de l'Ouest (Western Drama Theatre). There, in 1950, Noiret
made his debut sharing the stage with Gérard Philipe under directorship of
Roger Blin . From 1953-1960 Noiret was a permanent member of the
troupe with the Théâtre National Populaire (TNP) in Paris. There he
played over 40 roles in seven years under directorship of Jean Vilar.
While there he met actress Monique Chaumette, whom he married in 1962,
and they had one daughter, Frederique. At that time Noiret continued
his acting career as a stand-up comedian and a night club entertainer.
Noiret made his big screen debut playing bit part in Gigi (1949), then
earned his first on-screen credit in Agence matrimoniale (1952). He landed his first
leading role as Lui, a government inspector, in the French New Wave
film La Pointe Courte (1955) by notable female director Agnès Varda. His first big success
came in 1960 with Louis Malle 's film Zazie in the Metro (1960) (aka.. Zazie in the
Metro). In 1968 he became a star in France with the title role in
Very Happy Alexander (1968). After that success, Noiret moved on with his acting career and
devoted himself almost entirely to the big screen. Noiret's trademark
hangdog face and his range allowed him to portray a middle-class man or
an aristocrat, but not a handsome romantic hero, so he was cast
primarily as the Everyman character. In The Big Feast (1973), an allegoric film
about sex orgy and suicide by overeating, which caused a scandal at
Cannes in 1973, Noiret co-starred in a controversial role as suicidal
judge Philippe, alongside Marcello Mastroianni.
Philippe Noiret shot to international fame with the supporting role as
Alfredo, an old man who is a small town projectionist who befriends and
inspires a young boy, in Cinema Paradiso (1988). He received international acclaim for
his portrayal of the exiled Chilean poet Pablo Neruda in The Postman (1994) by director
Michael Radford. Noiret won two Cesar Awards (the French equivalent of the
Oscars) and earned three more Cesar nominations. In 1976 he won his
first Cesar for his exceptional performance as Julien Dandieu, a
surgeon who kills the Nazis in revenge for the death of his wife and
daughter, in The Old Gun (1975) (aka.. The Old Gun). Noiret won his second Cesar
for the leading role as Major Delaplane in Life and Nothing But (1989) (aka.. Life and
Nothing But) in 1990. Over the years, Noiret worked with all of the
France's top directors. He also made excellent radio performances and
popular books readings, which he narrated with his serious voice and
impeccable diction. He was decorated with the Knight of the Legion of
Honor.
Philippe Noiret was also known as an elegant hedonist and an avid dog
lover. His other interests outside of the acting profession included
art, horses, gourmet cuisine and cigars. For about 30 years he resided
in his country house in the wine country near Carcassonne, in the South
of France, where he generously supported the local causes. Noiret died
of generalized complications of cancer on November 23, 2006, in a
hospital, in Paris, and was laid to rest in Cimetière du Monparnasse in
Paris, France.- Actor
- Location Management
- Producer
Versatile, gimlet-eyed, soulful-looking François Périer was one of France's most prolific leading men and character lead for almost six decades. Born François Pilu in Paris on November 10, 1919, he was the son of a wine shop manager. In 1934, the young teenager wrote to legendary actor Louis Jouvet, who subsequently assisted his entering the Cours Simon and Le Conservatoire dramatic institutions for study.
A rising avant-garde stage actor by 1938, François moved directly into film, apprenticing as a featured player in such films as La chaleur du sein (1938) starring Michel Simon and Arletty; Hotel du Nord (1938) with Annabella, Jean-Pierre Aumont and mentor Jouvet; La fin du jour (1939) (The End of the Day) with Simon and Jouvet; Le veau gras (1939) (The Fatted Calf) spotlighting Elvire Popesco; and L'entraîneuse (1939) starring Michèle Morgan
With World War II in full swing in Europe, François found himself in good company with some of most renowned directors of the day, including Pierre Fresnay, Marcel Carné, Henri Decoin and René Clair. He was handed his first male lead in the boulevard-styled comedy Mariage d'amour (1942) opposite Juliette Faber and Lettres d'amour (1942) opposite Odette Joyeux. He would continue in leads throughout the decade with such roles as the journalist in La ferme aux loups (1943) and a romancer in The Loves of Colette (1948).
On stage, the charming, moderately handsome actor was noted best for his smooth, deep voice. He made a strong impression in the role of "Hugo" in the 1948 production of his close friend Jean-Paul Sartre "Les Mains Sales" (Dirty Hands). His association with Sartre's work continued with his appearances in the plays "The Condemned Of Altona" and "The Devil and the Good Lord." In later years, he portrayed composer "Salieri" opposite Roman Polanski's "Mozart" in a 1981 Paris production of "Amadeus," directed by Polanski.
The actor came into his own in his mid-to-later movie career with his participation in such classics as Orpheus (1950) as the "angel of death" directed by Jean Cocteau; Gervaise (1956) directed by René Clément; Nights of Cabiria (1957) directed by Federico Fellini; Lovers on a Tightrope (1960) directed by Jean-Charles Dudrumet, The Samurai (1967) directed by Jean-Pierre Melville; Z (1969) directed by Costa-Gavras; Just Before Nightfall (1971) directed by Claude Chabrol, plus over a hundred film projects ranging from comedy romances to crime dramas to political thrillers.
Elsewhere, François became a respected voice in narration, having narrated a French-language version of "Fantasia." He also provided commentaries to many commercial classical French recordings. Diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1991, he continued to work in radio and in a few movies, retiring in the mid-90s. His last film appearance was in the crime drama Mémoires d'un jeune con (1996) (Memories of a Young Fool).
Divorced from actresses Jacqueline Porel (1941-1947), the mother of his three children, and Marie Daëms (1949-1960), François died in Paris of a heart attack on June 29, 2002, at age 82, and was survived by third wife (from 1961) Colette Boutoulaud. Daughter Anne-Marie Périer was editor of Elle magazine; his two sons worked behind the scenes: writer/director Jean-Marie Périer and assistant director [link-nm0685177]. The latter died a suicide in 1966.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Beginning his film career as a screenwriter, Henri-Georges Clouzot switched over to directing and in 1943 had the distinction of having his film The Raven (1943) banned by both the German forces occupying France and the Free French forces fighting them, but for different reasons. He shot to
international fame with
The Wages of Fear (1953)
and consolidated that success with
Diabolique (1955), but
continuous ill health caused large gaps in his output, and several
projects had to be abandoned (though one,
Hell (1994), was subsequently filmed
by Claude Chabrol). His films are
typically relentless suspense thrillers, similar to Alfred Hitchcock's but
with far less light relief.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Jean Rollin was born on 3 November 1938 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France. He was a director and writer, known for The Night of the Hunted (1980). He was married to Simone Rollin. He died on 15 December 2010 in Paris, France.- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Solveig Dommartin was born on 16 May 1961 in Constantine, Constantine, France [now Algeria]. She was an actress and director, known for Wings of Desire (1987), Until the End of the World (1991) and It Would Only Take a Bridge (1998). She died on 11 January 2007 in Paris, France.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
He started out as romantic hero full of beauty and talent in Girl with a Suitcase (1961)
beside Claudia Cardinale. Director Valerio Zurlini engaged the talented young actor for
his Family Diary (1962) as Marcello Mastroianni's brother. Jacques Perrin's longtime work with
director Costa-Gavras started with The Sleeping Car Murder (1965) and Un uomo a metà (1966) in
which he had played the sensible heroes. For Costa-Gavras's Z (1969) he
played a main part and was the producer. Jacques Perrin has played
often in famous romantic movies by Jacques Demy beside Catherine Deneuve and in
social-critic-movies like Home Sweet Home (1973) beside Claude Jade, for which he was
co-producer too with his Reggane Productions. One of his memorable
later roles is the adult Salvatore as movie-director in Cinema Paradiso (1988). In
Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001), he plays the older Thomas.- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Vangelis was a composer and performer who worked almost exclusively with electronic instruments. With Jean-Michel Jarre and Mike Oldfield in the 1970s, Vangelis was a pioneer in the instrumental music and a main influence in the creation of the musical genre "new age," a style related to spiritual, meditation, relaxing ambient sounds as well as sounds from outer space. He was probably most well known for his Chariots of Fire (1981), Blade Runner (1982), The Bounty (1984) and 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) soundtracks or for the tracks used in the documentary TV series Cosmos (1980) created, produced and hosted by scientist Carl Sagan. Vangelis was involved in many musical collaborations, most famously with British progressive rock band Yes's founding member Jon Anderson.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
David Hamilton was born on 15 April 1933 in London, England, UK. He was a director and writer, known for Laura (1979), A Summer in Saint Tropez (1983) and Bilitis (1977). He was married to Mona Kristensen and Gertrude. He died on 25 November 2016 in Paris, France.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Jacques Demy was born on 5 June 1931 in Pontchâteau, Loire-Atlantique, France. He was a director and writer, known for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) and A Room in Town (1982). He was married to Agnès Varda. He died on 27 October 1990 in Paris, France.- Actress
- Soundtrack
The girl who one day would be known as "Winnipeg's Sweetheart" was born
at Grace Hospital on December 4, 1921, as Edna Mae Durbin. In her early
childhood there were no obvious signs that one day she would be a
bigger box office attraction than
Shirley Temple. Renamed Deanna Durbin for
show business purposes, by age 21 she was the most highly paid female
star in the world. Her major motion pictures were
Three Smart Girls (1936),
Mad About Music (1938) and
That Certain Age (1938). By the
time she was 18 her income was $250,000 a year. Her voice was often
described as "natural and beautiful" and her version of "One Fine Day"
from Madame Butterfly, became a classic. Deanna was a Hollywood star in
every way. There were Deanna Durbin dolls and dresses. An engineering
firm named its so-called dream home in her honor. Her first screen kiss
was described in a headline story across the continent. What makes
Deanna Durbin's story different is that she was never comfortable with
adulation. When she was at the top of her career as Hollywood's leading
actress and singer, she turned her back on that world for a life of
seclusion. Her first two marriages had failed, and before she married
her third husband, director
Charles David, she set one
condition: he had to promise that she could have what she yearned for -
"the life of nobody". Her seclusion is incomplete. She lives in the
French village of Neauphlé-le-Château, and for over 35 years has
resisted every approach from film companies. Her husband has told
journalists that "Mario Lanza
pleaded with her for years to make a film with him. But she will never
go back to that life." She granted only one interview since 1949 to
film historian David Shipman in 1983.- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Josephine Baker was born Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, MO, in 1906 to Carrie McDonald, a laundress, and Eddie Carson, a musician. Her early life hinted at her future career. She first
danced for the public on the streets of St. Louis for nickels
and dimes. Later she became a chorus girl on the St. Louis stage. At
age 15 she married Pullman porter William Howard Baker, but left him
when she ran away from St. Louis at age 17, feeling there was too much
racial discrimination in the city. She eventually made her way to
Paris, France. Her first job in Paris was in "La revue negre". Her next
significant job was at the Folies Bergere, where she was a member of
the club's all-black revue. It was there, in 1925, that she first performed
her famous "banana dance". She quickly became a favorite of the French,
and her fame grew, but she had many ups and downs during her career.
Although popular in France, during the "Red Scare" era of the
1950s, she was falsely accused of being a Communist and informed that
she was no longer welcome in the US (in 1937 she had
renounced her American citizenship, utterly disgusted by the blatant
and official racism against blacks, and became a French citizen).
In 1961 Josephine was awarded the Legion of Honor, France's highest
award. In the late 1960s she began having financial difficulties, and
stopped performing in 1968.
Grace Kelly, who by that time had
married
Prince Rainier of Monaco and
was now known as Princess Grace of Monaco, offered her a home in Monaco
when she learned of Josephine's financial problems. At the request of
Princess Grace, Josephine performed at Monaco's summer ball in 1974 and was a
great success. That same year she staged a week of performances in New
York City and called the show "An Evening with Josephine Baker". She
had just begun a Paris revue celebrating her half-century on the stage
when on April 10, 1975, she was stricken with a cerebral hemorrhage and went into a coma. She died
without regaining consciousness. Her funeral was held in Paris, and she
was buried in Monaco.- Actor
- Composer
- Music Department
Popular but troubled renegade French actor Patrick Dewaere was
christened Jean-Marie Patrick Bourdeaux on January 26, 1947, at
Saint-Brieuc in Britanny in the north-west region of France. The third
of six children born to actress Mado Maurin (1915-2011), his mother made
acting a family affair. All of his siblings --
Jean-Pierre Maurin (1941-1996), Yves-Marie Maurin (1944-2009), Dominique Maurin (1949- ),
Jean-François Vlerick (also known as Jean-Francois Maurin) (1957- ) and Marie-Véronique Maurin (1960- )
-- all became thespians. Patrick made his film debut at the age of four
under the name Patrick Maurin in
Amazing Monsieur Fabre (1951).
While growing up, he was taunted by his schoolyard friends for his
young film endeavors, he learned sensitivity and isolation at an early
age. Other films during this adolescent period of time included his
playing an unbilled child role in
Gene Kelly's
The Happy Road (1957).
As a young adult in the early 1960s Patrick appeared on French
television, then joined the "Café de Gare" theatrical troupe in 1968
where he remained for nearly a decade. It was during these stage years
that he changed his stage name to Dewaere, the maiden name of his great
grandmother. He also met and became romantically involvement with
fellow troupe member Miou-Miou. A child,
Angele, was born to this liaison in 1974, but the couple broke up after
only two years. Another daughter, Lola, was born in the early 1980s
from a later marriage.
After numerous film bits, stardom was finally his with the leading
rebel-like role of Pierrot in
Bertrand Blier's anarchic comedy
Going Places (1974) [Going
Places], which also starred up-and-coming actor
Gérard Depardieu and lady love
Miou-Miou. He and Depardieu earned instant
"anti-hero" stardom in this tale of two wanderlust petty thugs.
Patrick's genius for dark, offbeat comedy was apparent in the number of
black comedies that came his way.
Catherine & Co. (1975)
[Catherine & Co.] co-starred Patrick with
Jane Birkin, a social commentary on the
prostitution business. He followed this with the crime drama
The French Detective (1975) [The French
Detective] as Lino Ventura's inspector
sidekick. Dewaere earned high marks for his off-balanced role in
La meilleure façon de marcher (1976)
[The Best Way], then paired up again with Depardieu in the
Oscar-winning cross-over comedy
Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (1978)
[Get Out Your Handkerchiefs].
Infinitely more interested in searching out complex roles than fame,
his work in films were more often than not experimental, low budget and
quirky in style. He appeared innately drawn to playing sensitive,
scruffy, miserable neurotics, misfits and losers, as exemplified by his
characters in Hothead (1979) [Hothead],
Serie Noire (1979),
Heat of Desire (1981) [Heat of Desire],
Hotel America (1981)
[Hotel America] which co-starred
Catherine Deneuve, and the
critically-acclaimed Beau-père (1981).
This obsession may have triggered a deep and profound suffering in his
own off-screen personal life. Unlike his counterpart Depardieu,
Patrick's fame never branched out internationally, but he was
recognized consistently throughout Europe for his superlative
portrayals. Amazingly, he was nominated for seven César awards (the
French equivalent of the "Oscar") but never won.
Patrick's career ended in tragic and still mysterious circumstances.
Shortly after the release of the film
Paradis pour tous (1982)
[Paradise for All], a dark comedy in which his character commits
suicide, the 35-year-old actor decided to end his own life by shooting
himself with a rifle in his Paris home on July 16, 1982. At the time he
was working on the Claude Lelouch's film
Edith and Marcel (1983). A
shocking, inexplicable end to friends, fans and family alike, Dewaere
later became the subject of a full-length French documentary
Patrick Dewaere (1992), which was
shown at the Cannes Film Festival. The Patrick Dewaere Award was
established in France in 1983.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Diminutive, fiery-tempered Simone Simon was born in France, but spent
much of her early childhood in Madagascar, where her father managed a
graphite mine. Her schooling was somewhat unsettled, her family moving
from city to city (Berlin, Budapest, Turin) before finally establishing
themselves in Paris in 1930. Simone started as a dress designer,
fashion model and occasional performer in stage musicals. She
eventually met the director Marc Allégret,
who took her under his wing. Her film debut was in 1931 and she had her
first major hit as Jean Gabin's co-star in
The Human Beast (1938), directed
by Jean Renoir.
There were two halves to Simone's history in Hollywood. In 1936,
Darryl F. Zanuck signed her to a
contract at 20th Century Fox on the strength of a picture she had made
two years earlier, Allegret's
Ladies Lake (1934). She was
launched with an expensive publicity campaign which accentuated her
continental allure, particularly, her 'sexy pout'. During her tenure,
problems surfaced regarding her command of English and also her limited
singing skills. Dissatisfied with the roles she was given, Simone
returned to France and
'La Bete Humaine'. She made a second attempt at
Hollywood, acting in William Dieterle's
All That Money Can Buy (1941)
as Belle, the devil's handmaiden. The New York Times review of October
17 considered her 'completely out of key'. Simone's best work, however,
was to come in the shape of the cult horror classic
Cat People (1942). Producer
Val Lewton and director
Jacques Tourneur used her
triangular-faced feline qualities to best effect in the story of a girl
who obsesses about an ancient Balkan curse turning her into a panther.
The film was stylish and subtle, creating imagined rather than actual
menace. Simone's performance was commensurate with perfectly studied
cat-like mannerisms. During the production of 'Cat People', Simone was
under FBI surveillance because of her relationship with MI5 spy Dusko
Popov. She made two further, less successful, films at RKO, then
returned to France for good. Simone made several films there and worked
on the stage. In spite of many affairs and relationships, she never
married.- Music Artist
- Actor
- Music Department
James Douglas "Jim" Morrison was an American poet, singer, and songwriter from Florida. He was the lead vocalist of the rock band "The Doors" (1965-1973), and has been cited as "one of the most influential frontmen in rock history". Morrison recorded a total of six studio albums with the Doors, all of which sold well. Morrison struggled with alcohol dependency for most of his adult life, and displayed erratic behavior both on and off the stage. He was described as "A Jekyll and Hyde" by record producer Paul Rothchild, due to often displaying contradictory character traits in his interactions with others. Morrison died unexpectedly in Paris, France at the age of 27. No autopsy was ever performed, and the cause of Morrison's death remains disputed. His mysterious death has inspired a large number of theories, and has fascinated people for decades.
In 1943, Morrison was born in Melbourne, Florida, a city located 72 miles (116 kilometers) southeast of Orlando. Melbourne emerged as a new settlement in the 1870s. It was named after Melbourne, Australia, because the new town's first postmaster had spend most of his life in the Australian city. Morrison's parents were George Stephen Morrison (1919-2008) and his wife Clara Virginia Clarke (1919-2005). Morrison's father was a career officer of the United States Navy, and would eventually reach the rank of rear admiral. George is primarily remembered for his service in the Vietnam War. The Morrisons were part of a Scottish-American family that had been living in the United States since the 18th century. Genealogical research has indicated that they were descendants of Clan Morrison, a Scottish clan which is primarily associated with the Isle of Lewis and Harris.
Morrison experienced the typical nomadic life of a military brat, as his family never settled permanently in any location. At various points in his childhood, Morrison lived in San Diego, in northern Virginia, in Kingsville, Texas, and in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 1957, Morrison started his high school years in Alameda, California. In 1959, he was transferred to the George Washington High School, located in Alexandria, Virginia. He graduated from there in June 1961. During his last years of high school, Morrison maintained a grade average of 88. He reportedly tested in the top 0.1% with an IQ of 149.
Following his high school graduation, Morrison went to live with his paternal grandparents in Clearwater, Florida. He initially attended the St. Petersburg Junior College, which had been operating as a private, non-profit institution since the late 1920s. In 1962, Morrison started attending the Florida State University (FSU), located in Tallahassee. In September 1963, he was first arrested for the police. He had been found drunk at a home football game, and was charged with disturbing the peace.
In 1964, Morrison was transferred to the film program at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He enrolled at a class which studied the works of Antonin Artaud (1896-1948), and reportedly developed a fascination with surrealist theatre. In 1965, Morrison completed his undergraduate degree at UCLA's film school. He refused to attend the graduation ceremony, and the University mailed his diploma to his mother.
Following his university graduation, Morrison followed a bohemian lifestyle in Venice Beach, California. He lived on the rooftop of a building, and wrote song lyrics without having a chance to perform them. In the summer of 1965, Morrison and his recent acquaintance Ray Manzarek decided to form a rock band. They soon recruited the guitarist Robby Krieger and the drummer John Densmore. Morrison decided to name the band "The Doors", after the autobiographical book "The Doors of Perception" (1954) by Aldous Huxley. The name of the book was a reference to using "psychedelic drugs as facilitators of mystical insight".
Morrison soon emerged as the primary lyricist of the band, though Krieger wrote or co-wrote several of their hit songs. Morrison typically avoided using music instruments in live performances, though he learned to use both the maracas and the tambourine. In June 1966, the band were the opening act at the nightclub "Whisky a Go Go" in West Hollywood. During their performances there, Morrison interacted with the Irish singer Van Morrison (1945-), and studied aspects of Van's stage persona and stagecraft. He eventually incorporated several of these aspects into his own stage persona.
In November 1966, Morrison and the other members of the band produced the promotional film "Break On Through (To the Other Side)", named after the title of their first single. They would continue to create short music films throughout the initial years of the band. In 1967, the band signed a contract with the record company Elektra Records. The company would promote their songs to nationwide. The band had its breakthrough hit in the summer of 1967, with the single "Light My Fire". It spent three weeks at the top spot of the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
The band was soon booked to perform two of their songs in the variety television series "The Ed Sullivan Show". The show's censors insisted on changes to "Light My Fire", due to the show's explicit references to drug use. The band feigned compliance, but instead used the explicit version of the song. The resulting controversy caused the cancellation of their six further bookings for television appearances. However, their popularity among rock fans increased.
In September 1967, the band released their second album "Strange Days". It reached the 3rd place number on the US Billboard 200, and earned favorable reviews by the music press. The bands distinctive blend of blues and dark psychedelic rock had turned them into one of the most popular rock bands in the United States. However, Morrison would soon gain notoriety for different reasons. He was arrested on stage in New Haven, Connecticut, after narrating to the audience his recent encounter with a police officer who had maced him. The local police charged him with indecency and public obscenity, though the charges were eventually dropped. Morrison was the first rock performer to be arrested onstage during a live performance.
In September 1968, the Doors played in Europe for the first time. They gave four performances at the Roundhouse, London. Their performances were filmed by Granada Television for the television documentary "The Doors Are Open", which introduced the band to a wider British audience. As the band was gaining international popularity, the members increasingly took note of Morrison's self-destructive behavior. They were aware that he was a heavy drinker, but they realized that he started regularly appearing inebriated in their recording sessions.
By early 1969, Morrison had gained weight. He decided to stop wearing leather pants and concho belts, and to dress casually instead. He also ditched his typically clean-shaven look, and grew a beard for the first time. On March 1, 1969, Morrison increased his own reputation for rebellious behavior. While performing at the Dinner Key Auditorium in Miami, he encouraged the audience to start a riot and threatened to expose his penis on stage. Within days, six warrants for his arrest were issued by the Dade County Police department. One on them on charges of indecent exposure.
Due to Morrison's ongoing legal problems, many of the Doors' scheduled concerts had to be canceled. On September 20, 1970, Morrison was convicted of indecent exposure and profanity in a jury trial in Miami. In October 30, he was officially sentenced to imprisonment for 6 months and a fine of 500 dollars. Morrison remained free on a bond of 50,000 dollars. He commented in a press interview that the American judicial system favors the wealthy, and that (in his words) "if you have money you generally don't go to jail".
Morrison's last album with "The Doors" was "L.A. Woman". It was recorded between December 1970 and January 1971, and eventually released in April 1971. The album was heavily influenced by the blues genre, even more so than their previous works. It was co-produced by the veteran sound engineer Bruce Botnick. The album peaked at the 9th place on the Billboard 200, and the 28th place on the UK Albums Charts. Its most popular song was "Riders on the Storm", which peaked at the 14th place on the U.S Billboard Hot 100.
After finishing the recording of the album, Morrison announced to his band-mates that he planned to move to Paris, France. They had no objection to his decision. In March 1971, Morrison joined his longtime girlfriend Pamela Courson (1946-1974) at her rented apartment in Rue Beautreillis. This Paris street was noted as the former residence of the poet Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867). While staying in Paris, Morrison shaved his beard and lost some weight.
On July 3, 1971, Courson found Morison dead in the bathtub of their apartment at approximately 6:00 a.m. No autopsy was performed, as it was not required by French law. The official cause of death was heart failure, though this was just an educated guess. There were initial rumors of an accidental heroin overdose, but no evidence could confirm them. Morrison was buried at "Père Lachaise Cemetery", the largest cemetery in Paris and the most visited necropolis in the world. The cemetery was founded by the emperor Napoleon in 1804, and houses the remains of several famous writers and artists. Morrison has continued to inspire musicians for decades, and has repeatedly been cited as a main inspiration for the gothic rock genre.