Enigmatic megastar Anouk Aimee of ‘A Man and a Woman’ dies at 92

French film actress Anouk Aimé, who was a global cult image as the aloof, mysterious and sensual superstar of Claude Lelouch’s 1966 romance “A Man and a Woman,” died Tuesday at her home in Paris. She was 92 years old.

His death was announced on social media by his daughter Manuela Papatakis.

Within a month of starring in “A Man and a Woman,” Ms. Aimee had already made a considerable impact in global film, notably in Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” (1960), in which she Played a sex role. a hungry Italian socialite, and Fellini’s “8 ½” (1963), in which she played the jealous but patient wife of an executive personality.

However, it was with the 28-year-old director’s low-budget project “A Man and a Woman,” which went straight to winning the Oscar for Best International Film, that Ms. Amy created an image that continued throughout the course of her career. I through.

As an emotionally reluctant young widow and film-industry screenwriter, she falls in love with a racecar driver and widower, played by Jean-Louis Trintignant. Their long, long-awaited kiss, enhanced through roving digital cameras and Francis Lai’s confrontational theme, was one of Life’s most revered and recognizable film photographs.

Ms. Aimee was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for the role. Apart from this, she also received the BAFTA Film Award for Best International Actress and the Yellowish Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actress.

In 2002, he won an honorary César, the French equivalent of an Academy Award, for Accomplishment of Business. She was awarded Best Actress in a Serious Comedy at the 1980 Cannes World Film Festival for her portrayal of a mentally disturbed woman whose brother hopes she will commit suicide, in the Italian film Salto Nel. “Vuotto”, which was released in the United States. “Leap into the void.”

Ms. Amy’s film career was mainly aku, and some of her American films did not live up to good successes. She was part of the all-star cast of “Ready to Wear” (1994), Robert Altman’s scathing satire about the fashion industry.

A quarter century earlier he had played the title role in the 1969 play “Justin” directed by George Cukor. In an interview with The Palm Seashore published in 2000, she recalled her unsatisfactory ongoing dating with Cukor. “I kept talking about Fellini,” she said, “and he kept talking about Garbo.”

Ms. Amy was born Nicole Françoise Soraya Dreyfus on April 27, 1932, in Paris, the daughter of Henri Dreyfus, who acted in films under the name Henry Murray, and Geneviève Soraya, who also had a film acting career. .

At the age of 13, François, as he was called, was approached by a director, Henri Calef, who cast him in “La maison sous la mer” in 1947. She was billed simply as Anouk. , the title of his personality. The surname Aimée, French for “beloved”, was a later addition.

Despite being a young man, she won global acclaim as a modern Juliet in “The Lovers of Verona” (1951). The Unused York Times critic Bosley Crowther did not like the film, but called Ms. Amy “a lovely and amusing miss.”

Ms. Amy followed acting roles in Jacques Demy’s “Lola” (1961), an unused soap opera concerned with cabaret entertainment, and his romantic drama “Model Shop” (1969), in which nature re-emerges in Lola Los. Angeles Photographic Studio. He played an art scholar in “Les Amants de Montparnasse” (1958), a biography of the artist Modigliani, released in the US as “Modigliani of Montparnasse” in 1961.

“A Man and a Woman 20 Years Later,” Mr. Lelouch’s 1986 sequel, starring Ms. Aimée and Mr. Trintignant, was a box-office flop in France and the United States. His follow-up, “The Best Years of My Life” (2019), fared much better. Despite the fact that critics found the story overly sentimental (the characters meet once again in ancient afterlife), according to The Hollywood Reporter, the film’s percussion “occasionally hits sublime grace notes”.

Ms. Aimee worked at ECU Film and TV until the 80’s. Her biggest American film was Henry Jaglom’s “Festival in Cannes” (2002), in which she played a rising Echo screen legend. “The Best Years of a Life” was her biggest film, preceded by “Tous les soleils” (2011), about a music teacher duo, and “Mins allers!” (2012), a comedy based on a weight-loss couple.

Ms. Aimee married and divorced four times. Her longest marriage was to British actor Albert Finney, from 1970 to 1978. Her first marriage (1949–50) was to Edouard Zimmermann, and her second (1951–54) was to film editor and director Nikos Papatakis, with whom she had a daughter. Her third husband (1966–69) was Pierre Barouh, a French actor and musician, whom she met when he played her character’s deceased husband in “A Man and a Woman”.

Along with his daughter, his survivors include a granddaughter and great-granddaughter.

Ms. Aimee expressed strong opinions on a variety of topics over the years, including politics and fashion, but she was less concerned about her own. At most, it indicated a certain passivity or sense of destiny when it came to his future.

In a 1986 interview with Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times via newshounds at Cannes, she looked back on her career, recalling that she had been “discovered” in the ancient Hollywood sense, when she had been. a teenager.

“I chose not to,” she said. “I took it all for granted.”

And in a 1967 interview via The Times about working with the director and her co-stars on “A Man and a Woman,” the film that changed her fortunes, Ms. Amy said simply, ” We met, we all met, at the right time.”

derrick bryson taylor Contributed to the reporting.