Jeanne Moreau

Jeanne Moreau
at the San Sebastian International Film Festival (2006)
Born	23 January 1928 (1928-01-23) (age 82) Paris, France
Occupation	Actress, screenwriter, film director
Years active	1947–present
Spouse(s)	Jean-Louis Richard (1949–1951) Teodoro Rubanis (m.1966) William Friedkin (1977–1979)

Jeanne Moreau (French pronunciation: [Ê’an mɔˈÊ�o]; born 23 January 1928) is a French actress, screenwriter and director.

She made her theatrical debut in 1947, and established herself as one of the leading actresses of the Comédie-Française. She began playing small roles in films in 1949 and eventually achieved prominence as the star of Elevator to the Gallows (1958), directed by Louis Malle and Jules et Jim (1962), directed by François Truffaut. Most prolific during the 1960s, Moreau continues to appear in films to the present day.

Moreau is the recipient of a César Award for Best Actress, a BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress and a Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award for individual performances, and several lifetime awards.

Early life

Moreau was born in Paris, the daughter of Katherine (née Buckley), a dancer who performed at the Folies Bergère, and Anatole-Désiré Moreau, a restaurateur.¹² Moreau's father was French and her mother was English, a native of Lancashire, England and of part Irish descent.²³⁴ Moreau's father was Catholic and her mother, originally a Protestant , converted to Catholicism upon marriage.² Moreau studied at the Conservatoire de Paris.

Career

In 1947, she made her theatrical debut at the Avignon Festival. By her twenties, Moreau was already one of leading stage actresses at the Comédie-Française.² After 1949, she began appearing in films with small parts. From the late 1950s, after appearing in several successes, she began to work with the emerging generation of French film-makers. Elevator to the Gallows (1958) with first-time director Louis Malle was followed by Malle's The Lovers (Les Amants, 1959). The latter film, controversial in its day, led the media to tag her 'The New Bardot'.

Largely thanks to those films, she went on to work with many of the best known New Wave and avant-garde directors.² François Truffaut's New Wave film Jules et Jim (1962), her biggest success internationally, is centred on her magnetic starring role.² She has also worked with a number of other notable directors such as Michelangelo Antonioni (La notte and Beyond the Clouds), Orson Welles (Chimes at Midnight), Luis Buñuel (Diary of a Chambermaid), Elia Kazan (The Last Tycoon), Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Querelle), Wim Wenders (Until the End of the World), and by Carl Foreman (Champion).

Moreau has enjoyed success as a vocalist. She has released several albums and once performed with Frank Sinatra at Carnegie Hall.² In addition to acting, Moreau has also worked behind the camera, as a writer, director and producer.² Her blended accomplishments were the subject of a 1988 film profile, Calling The Shots, by Janis Cole and Holly Dale.

Personal life

Throughout her life, she has maintained friendships with prominent writers such as Jean Cocteau, Jean Genet, Henry Miller, and Marguerite Duras (an interview with Moreau is included in Duras's book Outside: Selected Writings).

She has been married twice, to Jean-Louis Richard (1949-1951) and American film director William Friedkin (1977-1979). Director Tony Richardson left his wife, Vanessa Redgrave, for her in 1967, but they never married. She has also dated directors Louis Malle and François Truffaut, fashion designer Pierre Cardin⁵, and Theodoros Roubanis, a Greek actor/playboy.⁶

She is a close friend of Sharon Stone, who presented a 1998 American Academy of Motion Pictures life tribute to Moreau. Orson Welles called her "the greatest actress in the world",⁷ and to this day she remains one of France's most accomplished actresses.

Filmography

As an actress

• Touchez pas au grisbi (1954) by Jacques Becker
• La Reine Margot (1954)
• Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (1958) by Louis Malle
• The Lovers (Les amants) (1958) by Louis Malle
• Les liaisons dangereuses (1959) by Roger Vadim
• The Four Hundred Blows (1959) (bit part) by François Truffaut
• Le Dialogue des Carmélites (1960) by Philippe Agostini
• Moderato Cantabile (1960) by Peter Brook
• A Woman Is a Woman (1961) by Jean-Luc Godard (Uncredited cameo, discussing Jules et Jim)
• La notte (1961) by Michelangelo Antonioni
• The Trial (1962) by Orson Welles
• Jules et Jim (1962) by François Truffaut
• Eva (1962) by Joseph Losey
• The Victors (1963) by Carl Foreman
• The Fire Within (Le feu follet) (1963) by Louis Malle
• Bay of Angels (1963) by Jacques Demy
• Diary of a Chambermaid (1964) by Luis Buñuel
• The Train (1964) by John Frankenheimer
• The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964) by Anthony Asquith
• Mata-Hari (1964) by Jean-Louis Richard
• Viva Maria! (1965) by Louis Malle
• Chimes at Midnight (1965) by Orson Welles
• Mademoiselle (1966) by Tony Richardson
• The Oldest Profession (1967)
• The Immortal Story (1968) by Orson Welles
• The Bride Wore Black (1968) by François Truffaut
• The Little Theatre of Jean Renoir (1970) by Jean Renoir
• Monte Walsh (1970)
• Chère Louise (1972) by Philippe de Broca
• Nathalie Granger (1972) by Marguerite Duras
• Les Valseuses (1974) by Bertrand Blier
• Joanna Francesa (1975) by Cacá Diegues
• The Last Tycoon (1976) by Elia Kazan
• Monsieur Klein (1976) by Joseph Losey
• Querelle (1982) by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
• La Truite (1982) by Joseph Losey
• Le Tiroir secret (1986) TV mini-series
• Nikita (1990) by Luc Besson
• Anna Karamazoff (1991)
• to meteoro vima tou pelargou(1991) by theo angelopoulos
• The Old Lady Who Walked in the Sea (1991)
• Until the End of the World (1991) by Wim Wenders
• The Lover (1992)
• A Foreign Field (1993) by Charles Sturridge
• Map of the Human Heart (1993)
• Catherine the Great (1995) as Empress Elizabeth Petrovna
• Beyond the Clouds (1995) - Michelangelo Antonioni
• The Proprietor (1996) - Merchant Ivory Film
• I Love You, I Love You Not (1996)
• Ever After (1998)
• Cet amour-là (2001) as Marguerite Duras
• Love Actually (2003) cameo as woman at Marseilles Airport
• Time to Leave (2005) by François Ozon
• Roméo et Juliette (2006)
• Désengagement (2007)
• One Day You'll Understand (2008)

As a director

• Lumière (1976)
• L'Adolescente (1979)
• Lillian Gish (1983, TV documentary)

Awards and nominations

César Awards

Molière Awards

References

External links

• Jeanne Moreau at the Internet Movie Database
• Jeanne Moreau at Allmovie
• Jeanne Moreau at Yahoo! Movies

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

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