Anouk Aimée, the French movie actress who turned a global intercourse image because the aloof, enigmatic and sensual star of Claude Lelouch’s 1966 romance “A Man and a Girl,” died on Tuesday at 92.
Her demise was introduced on social media by her daughter, Manuela Papatakis, who stated her mom died at house in Paris.
Ms. Aimée had already made a substantial impression in worldwide movie, significantly in Federico Fellini’s films “La Dolce Vita” (1960), by which she performed a sex-hungry Italian socialite, and “8 1/2” (1963), by which she portrayed the lead character’s jealous however affected person spouse.
Nevertheless it was with “A Man and a Girl,” a 28-year-old director’s low-budget undertaking that went on to win the Oscar for finest international movie, that she created the picture that endured all through her profession. As an emotionally reluctant younger widow and movie-industry script woman, she falls in love with a racecar driver and widower performed by Jean-Louis Trintignant. Their lengthy, long-awaited kiss, enhanced by a circling digital camera and Francis Lai’s hit theme, turned one of many period’s most revered and recognizable film photographs. Ms. Aimée was nominated for a finest actress Oscar for the function. It additionally introduced her the BAFTA movie award for finest international actress and the Golden Globe for finest movement image actress.
In 2002 she acquired an honorary César, the French equal of the Academy Award, for profession achievement. She was named finest actress on the 1980 Cannes Worldwide Movie Pageant for a darkly comedian function, that of a mentally disturbed lady whose brother hopes she’s going to commit suicide, within the Italian movie “Salto nel Vuoto,” launched in the USA as “Leap Into the Void.”
Ms. Aimée’s movie profession was predominantly European, and her comparatively few American movies have been lower than nice successes. She was a part of the all-star forged of “Able to Put on” (1994), Robert Altman’s poorly acquired satire in regards to the style {industry}. 1 / 4-century earlier she had performed the title character of the 1969 drama “Justine,” directed by George Cukor. In a 2000 interview with The Palm Seashore Put up, she recalled her unsatisfactory working relationship with Cukor. “I saved speaking about Fellini,” she stated, “and he saved speaking about Garbo.”
Nicole Françoise Sorya Dreyfus was born on April 27, 1932, in Paris, the daughter of Henri Dreyfus, who had acted in movies underneath the identify Henry Murray, and Geneviève Sorya, who additionally had a movie appearing profession.
At 13, Françoise was approached by Henri Calef, a director who forged her in “La Maison Sous la Mer,” launched in 1947. She was billed merely as Anouk, her character’s identify. The surname Aimée, the French phrase for “beloved,” was added later.
Nonetheless a young person, she acquired worldwide consideration as a modern-day Juliet in “The Lovers of Verona” (1951). The critic Bosley Crowther, writing in The New York Instances, hated the film, however pronounced the younger Ms. Aimée “a stunning and enterprising miss.”
Ms. Aimée had starring roles in Jacques Demy’s “Lola” (1961), a New Wave cleaning soap opera a few cabaret entertainer, and in his “Mannequin Store” (1969). She performed an artwork pupil in “Les Amants de Montparnasse” (1958), a biography of the artist Modigliani launched in the USA in 1961.
“A Man and a Girl 20 Years Later,” Mr. Lelouch’s 1986 sequel starring Ms. Aimée and Mr. Trintignant, was a box-office flop in France and the USA. Their subsequent strive, “The Finest Years of a Life” (2019), fared considerably higher. Though critics discovered the story oversentimental (the characters meet once more in previous age), the movie hit “occasional chic grace notes,” as The Hollywood Reporter famous.
She continued to work in European movie and tv effectively into her 80s. Her final American movie was Henry Jaglom’s “Pageant in Cannes” (2002), by which she performed an getting older European display screen legend. “The Finest Years of a Life” was her final movie, preceded by “Tous les Soleils” (2011), a few lonely music professor, and “Mince Alors!” (2012), a comedy a few weight-loss retreat.
Ms. Aimée married and divorced 4 instances. Her longest marriage, from 1970 to 1978, was her final, to the British actor Albert Finney. Her first marriage (1949-50) was to Edouard Zimmermann, and her second (1951-54) was to the movie author and director Nikos Papatakis, with whom she had a daughter. Her third husband (1966-69) was Pierre Barouh, a French actor and composer whom she met when he performed her character’s lifeless husband in “A Man and a Girl.”
Along with her daughter, her survivors embrace a granddaughter and great-granddaughter.
Ms. Aimée expressed robust opinions through the years on any variety of matters, together with politics and style, however she was much less forthcoming about herself. On the most, she instructed a sure passivity or sense of destiny when it got here to her life.
Interviewed in Cannes in 1986 by journalists together with Roger Ebert of The Chicago Solar-Instances, she seemed again on her profession, recalling that she had been “found,” within the previous Hollywood sense, when she was an adolescent.
“I didn’t select,” she stated. “I took all of it without any consideration.”
And interviewed by The Instances in 1967 about working with the director and her co-stars on “A Man and a Girl,” the movie that had simply modified her life, Ms. Aimée stated merely, “We met, all of us met, on the proper time.”
Derrick Taylor contributed reporting.
