Best French Actress in Supporting Role 1970-1979

Edwige Feuillère was born on 29 October 1907 in Vesoul, Haute-Saône, Franche-Comté, France. She was an actress and writer, known for Olivia (1951), Lucrezia Borgia (1935) and Wicked Duchess (1942). She was married to Pierre Feuillère. She died on 13 November 1998 in Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine, France.

Judith Magre was born on 20 November 1926 in Montier-en-Der, Haute Marne, France. She is an actress, known for Elle (2016), The Lovers (1958) and Les Thibault (1972). She was previously married to Claude Lanzmann.

Lea Massari was born on 30 June 1933 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress and writer, known for L'Avventura (1960), Murmur of the Heart (1971) and Indian Summer (1972). She has been married to Carlo Bianchini since 13 November 1963.

A charming, elegant, and exceedingly popular international film star with a gentle, understated beauty, actress Lilli Palmer was born as Lilli Marie Peiser on May 24, 1914, in Posen, Prussia. She was the daughter of Rose Lissman, an Austrian Jewish actress, and Alfred Peiser, a German Jewish surgeon. In addition to her native German, she grew up becoming fluent in French and English as well. Of her two sisters, older sister Irene Prador became an actress and singer in her own right. Lilli studied drama in Berlin and made her theatrical debut there in 1932 at age 18. Within a short time, however, the family was forced to flee their native homeland with the rise of Hitler and settled in Paris. Eventually Lilli moved to England to rebuild the career she had started on stage and film.

She made her British movie debut co-starring in the "B" mystery drama Crime Unlimited (1935), playing the distaff member of a syndicate of jewel thieves who becomes a romantic pawn for a policeman (Esmond Knight) who has infiltrated the crime ring as a plant. Throughout the rest of the decade she upped the value of her name in both "A" and "B" material, notably Alfred Hitchcock's Secret Agent (1936), Silent Barriers (1937) and The Man with 100 Faces (1938) where she provided the usual element of feminine mystery.

Lilli's career took a major upswing during the early to mid 1940s. Several of her pictures centered around the omnipresent war, particularly Thunder Rock (1942), her film career-maker), which starred Michael Redgrave as an anti-fascist journalist who retreats to Canada, and Notorious Gentleman (1945), with Rex Harrison as a idle bounder who sees the error of his ways and becomes a war sacrifice. This was Lilli's first movie with husband Harrison; they married in 1943 and she bore him a son, Carey Harrison, the following year. Carey grew up to became a writer and director.

The family moved to America in 1945 to further their careers. Rex and Lilli became a prominent acting couple, appearing together on the early 50s Broadway stage with "Bell, Book and Candle" (1950), "Venus Observed" (1952) and "The Love of Four Colonels" (1953), the last mentioned directed by Harrison. In movies, they co-starred in the murky crimer The Long Dark Hall (1951) and the vastly superior The Four Poster (1952), which later gave rise to the musical adaptation "I Do! I Do!". Lilli was award the Venice Film Festival Award for this performance and represented herself well with other handsome male acting partners, notably Gary Cooper in her debut American film Cloak and Dagger (1946) and John Garfield in the classic boxing film Body and Soul (1947), leaving audiences enthralled with one of its newer foreign imports. At one point, she was given her own own (short-lived) TV show to host, The Lilli Palmer Show (1951).

Somewhat typecast by this time as heartless cads and opportunists on film, "Sexy Rexy", as husband Harrison was known in the tabloids, developed quite a reputation off-camera as well. A particularly disastrous romance with actress Carole Landis led to that actress's tragic suicide in 1948. Lilli took the high road and came off the better for it in the public's eye. She eventually called it quits, however, with both Harrison and Hollywood and returned to Europe in 1954. In 1956 Lilli filmed Between Time and Eternity (1956) [Between Time and Eternity] and fell in love with handsome Argentine co-star Carlos Thompson, who had developed matinée idol status in Germany. They married in September of 1957, several months after her divorce from Harrison became final. This marriage endured.

Lilli matured gracefully in films, the epitome of poise and class, but she lost any potential for top stardom after leaving Hollywood. She made international productions for the rest of her career, primarily German and French, but they did not live up to her early successes and were not seen all that much outside of Europe. She managed to work, however, opposite a "Who's Who" of European male stars of the time, including Curd Jürgens, James Mason, Louis Jourdan, Jean Gabin, Jean Marais, Jean Sorel, Gérard Philipe and Klaus Kinski. Of those few movies she made in Hollywood, she played the prickly wife of Clark Gable, who has a May-December affair with young Carroll Baker in But Not for Me (1959); was a sparkling and witty standout in the ensemble cast of The Pleasure of His Company (1961); and proved quite moving in the William Holden spy thriller The Counterfeit Traitor (1962). On TV here, she was touchingly effective as Mrs. Frank in a production of The Diary of Anne Frank (1967) with Max von Sydow, and enjoyed one of her last roles in the acclaimed miniseries Peter the Great (1986).

The final decade and a half played out rather routinely with supporting roles in such films as diverse as Oedipus the King (1968), De Sade (1969), and The Boys from Brazil (1978). She demonstrated her writing talents with her popular bestselling biography "Change Lobsters and Dance" in 1975, and later published a novel "The Red Raven" in 1978. Dying of cancer in 1986 at age 71 in Los Angeles, Lilli's surviving second husband Thompson, who had abandoned acting in the late 60s and turned to turned TV writing/producing, committed suicide four years later back in his native Argentina.

Françoise Prévost was born on 13 January 1929 in Paris, France. She was an actress and writer, known for I Promised to Pay (1961), Paris Belongs to Us (1961) and The Three Musketeers (1953). She died on 30 November 1997 in Paris, France.

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?

The face of Simone Signoret on the Paris Metro movie posters in March 1982 looked even older than her 61 years. She was still a box-office draw, but the film L'étoile du Nord (1982) would be her last theatrical release; she played the landlady. Signoret had a long film apprenticeship during World War II, mostly as an extra and occasionally getting to speak a single line. She worked without an official permit during the Nazi occupation of France because her father, who had fled to England, was Jewish. Working almost all the time, she made enough as an extra to support her mother and three younger brothers. Her breakthrough to international stardom came when she was 38 with the British film Room at the Top (1958). Her Alice Aisgill, an unhappily-married woman who hopes she has found true love, radiated real warmth in all of her scenes--not just the bedroom scenes. She was the same woman as Dedee, a prostitute who finds true love in Dedee (1948), a film directed by Signoret's first husband, Yves Allégret, a decade earlier. Hollywood beckoned throughout the 1950s, but both Signoret and her second husband, Yves Montand, were refused visas to enter the United States; their progressive political activities did not sit well with the ultra-conservative McCarthy-era mentality that gripped the US at the time. They got visas in 1960 so Montand, a singer, could perform in New York and San Francisco. They were in Los Angeles in March 1960 when Signoret received the Oscar for best actress and stayed on so Montand could play opposite Marilyn Monroe in Let's Make Love (1960). The Signoret film that is shown most often on TV and got a theatrical re-release in 1995, four decades after it was made is the French thriller Diabolique (1955). The chilly character Signoret plays is proof of her acting ability. More typical of her person is the countess in Ship of Fools (1965), a film that also starred Vivien Leigh ,which more than doubled its chances of being in a video-store or library film collection.

Laura Antonelli was born on 28 November 1941 in Pola, Istria, Italy [now Pula, Istria, Croatia]. She was an actress, known for Passion of Love (1981), Malicious (1973) and The Innocent (1976). She was married to Enrico Piacentini. She died on 22 June 2015 in Ladispoli, Rome, Lazio, Italy.

Annie Cordy was born on 16 June 1928 in Brussels, Belgium. She was an actress, known for Memories (2014), Le Chat (1971) and Le chanteur de Mexico (1956). She was married to Henri Bruno. She died on 4 September 2020 in Vallauris, Alpes-Maritimes, France.

Anouk was born Anne-Marie Levain in Paris. Her father was a cartoonist, Paul (or Pol) Ferjac, who worked for the satirical weekly publication Le Canard enchaîné (which translates in English to 'the chained newspaper'). As a child, Anouk learned to dance and eventually took acting and diction classes under René Simon . At fourteen, she performed a snake act at the Casino de Paris and made her film debut that same year. She had her first leading role a year later in a comedy drama about struggling artists, Cité de l'espérance (1948). Anouk featured in support in André Cayatte 's Justice Is Done (1950) and We Are All Murderers (1952), but was then little heard of until the 1960s when she enjoyed something of a resurgence in films of the Nouvelle Vague under directors Michel Deville (Lucky Jo (1964)), Alain Resnais (The War Is Over (1966) and I Love You, I Love You (1968)) and Claude Chabrol (This Man Must Die (1969)). From the mid-80s, she worked predominantly in French television.

Opulent French actress Suzanne Flon, who came from humble beginnings, evolved into a luminous stage and film star whose career lasted five decades. She was born near Paris, the daughter of a railway worker and a seamstress and at school developed an interest in writing poetry. Following high school she worked as an English interpreter at Au Printemps, a large Parisian department store, before finding a position with the famed songbird Édith Piaf as her personal secretary. Ms. Flon's first performance was as a mistress of ceremonies in a musical revue. She continued on stage and eventually developed an association with the noted playwright Jean Anouilh in the early 1940s; she played his heroine Ismene in "Antigone" and played Joan of Arc to great acclaim in "The Lark" in 1953. She also dabbled in avant garde works by Marguerite Duras as well as Shakespeare, Pirandello, Chekhov and Molliere and won a number of stage awards for her efforts. In 1959, she became a member of the Theatre National Populaire and appeared in several plays under the direction of René Clair.

Ms. Flon began in films with Capitaine Blomet (1947) before branching out internationally in the 1950s. She was an elegant standout as a free-spirited couture model who became the object of fascination and desire for the crippled painter Toulouse-Lautrec played by José Ferrer in John Huston's film Moulin Rouge (1952). She also impressed in friend Orson Welles' comedy-thriller Confidential Report (1955) as a listless patrician, and later played Miss Pittl for him in The Trial (1962) [The Trial]. War themes were prominent in her 1960s work. In Thou Shalt Not Kill (1961) [Thou Shalt Not Kill], she won the Venice Film Festival award for her resolute mother whose son resists the World War I draft. In The Train (1964) starring Burt Lancaster, Jeanne Moreau and Paul Scofield she had some excellent scenes as an art curator who becomes a detrimental figure in the Nazi's plans to secretly export masterpieces out of France during the French Resistance.

Awards continued to come her way with a number of stylish and sensitive "grande dame" roles. She won bookend César awards for One Deadly Summer (1983) [One Deadly Summer] as Isabelle Adjani's deaf but highly sensitized aunt, and as the mother of Lambert Wilson in La vouivre (1989) [The Dragon]. Her rich and soothing voice was also used frequently for French narratives in numerous documentaries. Ms. Flon continued to appear on stage, film and TV right up until her death of a stomach ailment at age 87 in 2005.

Ottavia Piccolo was born on 9 October 1949 in Bolzano, Italy. She is an actress, known for The Leopard (1963), Metello (1970) and The Family (1987). She has been married to Claudio Rossoni since 11 December 1974. They have one child.

Leading French actress, born Catherine Vitale in Marseille, first trained as a dancer at fourteen. She subsequently attended the Institut cinématographique de Marseille and began on stage from 1956. She has acted in plays by Molière, Achard, Dostoievsky, Tolstoy, Anouilh, Shaw and Guitry. With Marie-France Boyer she co-founded the Théâtre du quotidien. Catherine Rouvel is best known on the screen for her roles in Jean Renoir's Picnic on the Grass (1959), Marcel Carné's Les assassins de l'ordre (1971), Jacques Deray's classic gangster film Borsalino (1970) and Jean-Jacques Annaud's Black and White in Color (1976).

Alice Sapritch was unattractive and she knew it for a fact. She nevertheless decided to become an actress, aware that she would never be the love interest of the handsome hero or play the blushing ingénue. That's the reason why she set about emphasizing her lack of glamor instead of concealing it. In these conditions, two main categories were available to her, either obnoxious monsters (Folcoche in TV made 'Vipère au poing') or foolish eccentrics (the crazy actress in 'L'événement le plus important depuis que l'homme a marché sur la lune'). In 1971, with 'La folie des grandeurs', Gérard Oury gave her the opportunity to combine monstrosity and ridicule in a single character, the duenna of the Queen of Spain who, although as ugly as sin, indulges in what may well be the most comical striptease ever filmed. Unforgettable! And not being a beauty queen also happened to be an advantage. Didn't she play Hamlet's mother at the age of twenty-three? And when she was older, the beauty factor having become irrelevant, she was able to embody the poignant 'Mère russe' (Russian Mother) in the TV film of the same title. The real trouble is her film career for, in spite of one or two satisfying roles, she appeared in an endless series of particularly inept vulgar French 'comedies'. By her own admission, she would have dreamed of being directed by Bergman, Schlöndorff or Herzog and she wound up working for Philippe Clair, Michel Gérard, Jean Luret and co! Of course there were a few exceptions to this rule, for instance when she played Aunt Elizabeth in Téchiné's 1978 'Les soeurs Brontë' and a few appearances in good quality films at the beginning of her career but all in all her performances on the silver screen are a real disappointment compared with what she did on TV and on the boards.

Stéphane Audran was born on November 8, 1932 in Versailles, Seine-et-Oise [now Yvelines], France as Colette Suzanne Jeannine Dacheville. She was an actress, known for Der diskrete Charme der Bourgeoisie (1972), Babettes Fest (1987) and Der Schlachter (1970). She was married to Claude Chabrol and Jean-Louis Trintignant. She died at the age of 85 on March 27, 2018 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France after an illness.

Mireille Darc was born on 15 May 1938 in Toulon, Var, France. She was an actress and director, known for Weekend (1967), Galia (1966) and The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe (1972). She was married to Pascal Desprez. She died on 28 August 2017 in Paris, France.

Macha Méril was born on 3 September 1940 in Rabat, French Protectorate in Morocco [now Morocco]. She is an actress and producer, known for Deep Red (1975), Belle de Jour (1967) and Vagabond (1985). She was previously married to Michel Legrand and Gian Vittorio Baldi.

Madeleine Renaud was born on 21 February 1900 in Paris, Ile-de-France, France. She was an actress, known for The Longest Day (1962), Stormy Waters (1941) and Hélène (1936). She was married to Jean-Louis Barrault and Charles Granval. She died on 23 September 1994 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France, France.

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.

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?

Édith Scob was a French stage and screen actress. Though Édith Scob was a major figure in French theater for over half a century and appeared in over a hundred feature film and television productions, she will always be remembered first for her performance as Christiane in Georges Franju's "Les yeux sans visage/Eyes Without a Face" (1960). It was two years before that Scob, still a student of French and drama at the Sorbonne, had begun appearing onstage, launching a remarkable theatrical career that would include cofounding a theater in the late 1960s with her husband, composer Georges Aperghis. Later she appeared in films by Luis Buñuel, Raúl Ruiz, Jacques Rivette, Andrzej Zutawskiand, Olivier Assayas and Mia Hansen-Løve. Leos Carax cast Édith Scob in "Les amants du Pont-Neuf/The Lovers on the Bridge" (1991) and two decades later, he offered her the role of Céline, the close friend and chauffeur of Denis Lavant's mysterious Oscar in "Holy Motors" (2012).

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.

Valentina Cortese was born in Milan on New Year's Day of 1923. She made her movie debut in 1940 and played many "ingenue" parts in Italian films of that period, before making a real sensation in Caccia all'uomo (1948) and Tempesta su Parigi (1948), playing both female leads, Fantine and Cosette (the film was a competent screen adaptation of the Victor Hugo classic "Les misérables"). The international success of the British-made melodrama The Glass Mountain (1949) brought her some Hollywood offers: she was very sensual as a truck-driver's mistress in Jules Dassin's film noir Thieves' Highway (1949), and particularly effective in Robert Wise's thriller The House on Telegraph Hill (1951), in which she portrayed a woman pursued by a killer.

She then returned to Europe and worked with many great directors, like Michelangelo Antonioni, who cast her in Le amiche (1955), and Federico Fellini, who gave her a supporting part in his surrealist fantasy Juliet of the Spirits (1965). She had an especially robust part in Francois Truffaut's Day for Night (1973) as a fading alcoholic movie star (she was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for this performance). She also had a stage career, working with writers and directors such as Giorgio Strehler and Franco Zeffirelli and starring in the title roles of Schiller's "Mary Stuart" and Wedekind's "Lulu".

Mimsy Farmer first began acting at age 16, when a press agent noticed her and offered her work in the film, Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961), an unbilled bit with one line as a girl in the lobby. Her first billed film was a featured part in Spencer's Mountain (1963), starring Henry Fonda, Maureen O'Hara and James MacArthur. After her first acting role, Mimsy took acting lessons after graduation and landed a few more roles, playing featured characters in the films, Bus Riley's Back in Town (1965), Hot Rods to Hell (1966), Riot on Sunset Strip (1967) and Devil's Angels (1967). After spending a year in Canada and working in a research hospital, she returned to the USA, moved to Los Angeles, and was soon cast for a role in Roger Corman's The Wild Racers (1968), which was directed by Daniel Haller. Her experience on that film was to her 'a pleasant one' because she first traveled to Europe and experienced the various countries, and to England to visit her older brother, who worked as a math teacher at a university in London.

After appearing in the film, More (1969), Mimsy traveled to Italy for a vacation and met her future husband, screenwriter Vincenzo Cerami, who wanted to write her a part in a film. He was later fired as the scriptwriter and her role was not cast. After spending time in Italy, and disillusioned by the civil unrest and political problems with the USA and its involvement in the Vietnam War, Mimsy, a liberal left-winger, settled in Italy to continue her acting career there.

Mimsy Farmer first became an international star when Dario Argento cast her to appear alongside Michael Brandon in 'giallo' mystery-thriller, Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971) (aka "Four Flies on Grey Velvet"), in 1971. After her success with "Four Flies on Grey Velvet" (1971), Mimsy remained in Italy and a steady stream of acting roles followed with dramatic parts in dramas and thrillers, including Allonsanfan (1974), and The Perfume of the Lady in Black (1974), directed by Francesco Barilli. One of her best roles was a starring role in the horror-mystery-thriller, Autopsy (1975) (aka "Autopsy"), directed by Armando Crispino, where she played a pathologist investigating a murder.

She also appeared in two films, directed by Ruggero Deodato, titled Concorde Affaire '79 (1979) and Body Count (1986). Lucio Fulci even cast her, in 1981, for a co-starring part in The Black Cat (1981) (aka "The Black Cat") (1981), playing the heroine/victim. She also appeared in a number of French language films and TV. After her divorce from Vincenzo Cerami in the 1980s, Mimsy and her teenage daughter, Aisha Cerami, settled in France, where she also did some French-language movie and TV roles and she considers French an easier language to learn and speak than Italian.

Clotilde Joano was born on 3 January 1932 in Geneva, Switzerland. She was an actress, known for Z (1969), The Good Girls (1960) and Le théâtre de la jeunesse (1960). She was married to François Martin. She died on 23 March 1974 in Milly-la-Forêt, Essonne, France.