French 'femme fatale' actress Jeanne Moreau dies, aged 89
July 31, 2017
Jeanne Moreau, a major figure of the French New Wave, left her mark on cinema in France and around the world as a sensual performer in films like "Jules and Jim" and "The Lovers."
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French actress and femme fetale Jeanne Moreau passed away Monday in Paris at the age of 89, according to her agent. The smoky-voiced actress made well over 120 films in her decades-long career.
Her breakthrough came with the drama "Elevator to the Gallows," which was directed by Louis Malle in 1957. The duo became lovers and continued to fascinate both cinema-goers and the press as they went on to make the erotic drama "The Lovers" in 1959.
Moreau's best-known role was perhaps as Catherine in Francois Truffaut's love-triangle drama "Jules and Jim" (1962), which shot her to international fame. Roger Ebert, one of the most esteemed critics of her era, commented that Moreau was similar to the character.
Moreau herself once maintained that "acting deals with very delicate emotions. It is not putting up a mask. Each time an actor acts he does not hide; he exposes himself."
Jeanne Moreau's most celebrated roles
French actress Jeanne Moreau, an icon of the French New Wave, has passed away at age 89. We celebrate her most memorable roles and remarkable career.
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The Lovers
Having already collaborated on "Elevator to the Gallows," Moreau again worked with her paramour, the director Louis Malle, on "The Lovers" in 1958. The French New Wave classic was a breakthrough film for both. It was also provocative. The story of a married woman who contemplates an affair with a passing stranger was labeled as pornography in America.
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The Night
In 1960, she won a Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival for "Seven Days... Seven Nights" (1960), and in 1961 Jeanne Moreau appeared with Marcello Mastroianni in the Golden Bear-winning film, "The Night" by Michelangelo Antonioni. Playing the wife of a famous and adulterous writer, Moreau performs some infidelity of her own as their marriage dissolves over a single night.
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The Trial
Orson Welles called Moreau "the greatest actress in the world" after they first collaborated on the 1962 English-language film "The Trial," which Welles both directed and acted in. Moreau (left) played alongside Anthony Perkins of "Psycho" fame, who is told to stand trial for a crime that is never explained to him. The film noir classic based on the Franz Kafka novel also starred Romy Schneider.
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Mati Hari, Agent 21
In 1964, Moreau played the title role in the romantic spy thriller, "Mata Hari Agent 21." In this rendering, Hari is a Dutch exotic dancer who begins spying for Germany on the eve of World War I before she is caught up in a doomed affair. The film's screenplay was partly written by Francois Truffaut, who Moreau dated for a time, while it was directed by her former husband, Jean-Louis Richard.
Already good friends, Jeanne Moreau (left) and Bridget Bardot finally teamed up on the Louis Malle film "Viva Maria!" in 1965. It's the story of Mary and Mary, two free-spirited femmes fatales who adventure across Mexico while engaging in love, revolution and the occasional strip tease.
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Lifetime achievement
Jeanne Moreau (left) and Italian movie star Sophia Loren (right) join arms with French film legend Alain Delon as they arrive at Nice airport in 1989 to attend the opening night of the 42nd Cannes Film Festival. Moreau received a lifetime achievement award at Cannes in 2004, where she also twice sat on the film festival jury.
Image: AP
Golden Bear
Jeanne Moreau is pictured talking to the media during a press conference in Berlin in 2000 during the Berlin International Film Festival . She was awarded an honorary Golden Bear for her lifetime achievement during that Berlinale. Like the honorary Oscar she also received, it was a testament to nearly 70 years in film across a remarkable career.
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Moreau was born on January 23, 1928 to a British dancer and a French restaurant owner. Her parents divorced when she was 11 and her mother returned to the UK with her sister. During the Nazi occupation of Paris in the 1940s, Moreau remained in the French capital with her father, who managed a restaurant in Montmartre.
She studied acting in Paris and performed in theater as a teenager before pursuing cinema.
A contemporary of French stars like Brigitte Bardot and Catherine Deneuve, her career peak came in the 1960s when she collaborated with international filmmakers like Peter Brook ("Seven Days…Seven Nights," 1960), Michelangelo Antonioni ("La Notte," 1961), Luis Bunuel ("Diary of a Chambermaid," 1964), and Orson Welles ("The Trial," 1962 and "The Immortal Story," 1968).
Welles once called her "the greatest actress in the world."
She continued working in European film - with a few sidesteps to Hollywood - during the following decades. Moreau appeared, for example, in Luc Besson's action thriller "Nikita" in 1990, and Wim Wenders's "Until the End of the World" in 1991.
Jeanne Moreau has been honored numerous times for her lifetime achievement - at the Venice Film Festival in 1991, the Berlinale in 2000 and the Cannes Film Festival in 2004. She also won the European Film Academy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997.
She presided over the Cannes jury twice and also won an honorary Oscar.
French President Emmanuel Macron honored her Monday for the broad range of her work, which extended from femme fatale role in early years to comedies and other genres later in life.
Moreau was dedicated to her work, once saying that she would continue acting as long as she lived.
