Isabelle Adjani

Isabelle Yasmine Adjani (born 27 June 1955) is a French film actress and singer. Adjani has appeared in 30 films since 1970. She won four César Awards in Possession (1981), One Deadly Summer (1983), Camille Claudel (1988), and Queen Margot (1994). Also she received two Academy Award nominations for Best Actress. She performs in French, English, and German.

Early life

Adjani was born in an immigrant neighborhood Gennevilliers, a suburb of Paris³ (some sources say Bavaria, Germany⁴⁵) to an Algerian father, Mohammed Cherif Adjani, and a German mother, Augusta, called "Gusti". She grew up speaking German fluently as a first language.⁶⁷⁸ After winning a school recitation contest, she began acting in amateur theater by the age of twelve. At the age of 14, she starred in her first motion picture Le Petit bougnat (1970)

Career

She first gained fame as a classical actress for her interpretation of Agnès, the main female role in Molière's L'École des femmes, but soon left the Comédie française she had joined in 1972 to pursue a film career. After minor roles in several films, she enjoyed modest success in the 1974 film La Gifle (or The Slap). The following year, she landed her first major role in François Truffaut's The Story of Adèle H. Critics enthused over her performance, with Pauline Kael calling her acting talents "Prodigious".⁹ All this attention resulted in a nomination for the Best Actress Oscar and offers for rôles in Hollywood films, such as Walter Hill's 1978 crime thriller The Driver. She then played Lucy in Werner Herzog's 1979 remake of Nosferatu (1979) .

In 1981, Adjani received the Cannes Film Festival's best actress award for the Merchant Ivory film Quartet based on the novel by Jean Rhys, and for the horror film Possession. The following year, she received her first César Award for Possession, in which she portrays a woman having a nervous breakdown. In 1983, she won the César, for her depiction of a vengeful woman in the blockbuster One Deadly Summer.

Adjani as Marya Zelli in Quartet.

In 1989, she co-produced and starred in a biopic of the tragic sculptor Camille Claudel. She received her third César and second Oscar nomination for her role in the film, which was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Following this publicity, she was chosen by People magazine as one of the '50 Most Beautiful People' in the world. Her fourth César win was for the 1994 film Queen Margot, an ensemble epic directed by Patrice Chéreau.

Personal life

Adjani has two sons: Barnabé Nuytten with Bruno Nuytten, and Gabriel-Kane Day-Lewis from her six-year relationship with Oscar-winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Gabriel-Kane was born in New York City in 1995, several months after her relationship with Day-Lewis ended.

Adjani was also engaged to composer Jean Michel Jarre, but they broke up publicly in 2004.¹⁰

In 1987, some French media outlets incorrectly reported that Adjani was dying of AIDS, forcing her to appear on television to deny it.¹¹

In 2009, she denounced statements by Pope Benedict XVI on the futility of condoms in AIDS prevention.¹²

Filmography

Discography

• Pull marine (1983; produced and written by Serge Gainsbourg)

References

Bibliography

• Kael, Pauline (1980). When The Lights Go Down. Henry Holt & Co. ISBN 0-03042-511-5

Further reading

• Adjani, Isabelle (1980). Isabelle Adjani in : Jean-Luc Douin (Hrsg.): Comédiennes aujourd'hui : au micro et sous le regard. Paris: Lherminier. ISBN 2-862-44 020-5
• Austin, Guy (2003). Foreign bodies: Jean Seberg and Isabelle Adjani, S. 91-106 in: ders., Stars in Modern French Film. Londres: Arnold. ISBN 0-340-76 019-2
• Austin, Guy (2006). Telling the truth can be a dangerous business : Isabelle Adjani, race and stardom, in : Remapping World Cinema : Identity, Culture and Politics in Film, herausgegeben von Stephanie Dennison und Song Hwee Lim, London: Wallflower Press. ISBN 1-904-76 462-2
• Halberstadt, Michèle (2002). Adjani aux pieds nus - Journal de la repentie. Paris: Editions Calmann-Lévy. ISBN 2-702-13 293-6
• Roques-Briscard, Christian (1987). La passion d'Adjani, Lausanne et al.: Favre. ISBN 2-828-90 279-X
• Zurhorst, Meinolf (1992). Isabelle Adjani. Ihre Filme - Ihr Leben. Heyne Film- und Fernsehbibliothek, Band 163. München: Heyne. ISBN 3-453-05 238-2

External links

• Isabelle Adjani at the Internet Movie Database
• Isabelle Adjani at the Notable Names Database

v â€¢ d â€¢ e César Award for Best Actress 1976 : Romy Schneider • 1977 : Annie Girardot • 1978 : Simone Signoret • 1979 : Romy Schneider • 1980 : Miou-Miou • 1981 : Catherine Deneuve • 1982 : Isabelle Adjani • 1983 : Nathalie Baye • 1984 : Isabelle Adjani • 1985 : Sabine Azéma • 1986 : Sandrine Bonnaire • 1987 : Sabine Azéma • 1988 : Anémone • 1989 : Isabelle Adjani • 1990 : Carole Bouquet • 1991 : Anne Parillaud • 1992 : Jeanne Moreau • 1993 : Catherine Deneuve • 1994 : Juliette Binoche • 1995 : Isabelle Adjani • 1996 : Isabelle Huppert • 1997 : Fanny Ardant • 1998 : Ariane Ascaride • 1999 : Élodie Bouchez • 2000 : Karin Viard • 2001 : Dominique Blanc • 2002 : Emmanuelle Devos • 2003 : Isabelle Carré • 2004 : Sylvie Testud • 2005 : Yolande Moreau • 2006 : Nathalie Baye • 2007 : Marina Hands • 2008 : Marion Cotillard • 2009 : Yolande Moreau

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia