French film star Anouk Aim茅e dies aged 92
- Published
French film star Anouk Aim茅e, who was a popular leading lady for several of Europe's most influential directors, has died aged 92.
Aim茅e appeared in dozens of films across her eight-decade career, including starring in Claude Lelouch's A Man and a Woman, for which she was nominated for an Oscar.
She died at her home in Paris on Tuesday, S茅bastien Perrolat, of the TimeArt agency, told the AFP news agency.
Her daughter, Manuela Papatakis, said she was 鈥渞ight by her side鈥 when her mother died.
Posting a black-and-white photograph of Aim茅e on Instagram, she wrote: 鈥淲ith my daughter, Galaad, and my granddaughter, Mila, we have great sadness to announce the departure of my mother Anouk Aim茅e.鈥
French Culture Minister Rachida Dati wrote on X: "We bid farewell to a world-famous icon, to a great actress of French cinema who took on roles for some of the biggest names, such as (Jacques) Demy, Lelouch and (Federico) Fellini."
Aim茅e was born Nicole Fran莽oise Florence Dreyfus in Paris in 1932.
Her father was Jewish, although she was raised Catholic, and after German troops marched into the city eight years later her family sent her to the countryside where they hoped she would be safer, and changed her name, according to AFP.
She made her screen debut in her early teens in the 1946 movie La Maison Sous La Mer (The House Under The Sea on its US release) and adopted her character's name, Anouk, as her own.
French poet and screenwriter Jacques Prevert convinced her to also change her surname to Aim茅e , meaning "loved".
She was sought after to appear in Italian films as well as those in her native country.
Her big break was Fellini's arthouse film La Dolce Vita, one of the most acclaimed movies in Italian cinematic history, in 1960. Three years later she would appear in his film 8陆.
It was her starring role in Lelouch's 1966 film A Man and a Woman which is said to have made her into an icon of doomed romance. Her performance earned Aim茅e a Golden Globe and a Bafta award for best actress, as well as an Oscar nomination.
It was the first time that an actor or actress had been Oscar-nominated for a French-language performance. She lost out to Elizabeth Taylor who won for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? but A Man And A Woman did win the award for best foreign language film.
Aim茅e as Anne Gauthier in the 1966 French film A Man and a Woman
In total, Aim茅e went on to star in 70 films throughout her career.
In 2002 she received an honorary C茅sar Award, France's national film award.
She walked the Cannes Film Festival red carpet in 2019 for the premiere of Lelouch's sequel to A Man and a Woman in which she and her original co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant reunited to reprise their characters, now in their 80s.
Aim茅e was renowned for her beauty, as well as her acting talent.
She was considered "one of the 100 sexiest stars in film history", according to a 1995 poll conducted by Empire magazine.
Aim茅e had one daughter, Manuela, with film director Nico Papatakis, one of her four husbands during her life.
She also married composer Pierre Barouh, who wrote the theme song for A Man and a Woman.
Her fourth husband was the British actor Albert Finney, whom she wed in August 1970 in a low-key ceremony that did not involve him giving her a wedding ring "as a matter of personal taste". The pair lived in London for the seven years of their marriage.
Aim茅e lived the last decades of her life in the district of Montmartre in Paris.