The French superstar of ‘A Guy and a Girl’ was 92

Anouk Aimée, French actress known for her beauty and funky sophistication in films including Claude Lelouch’s “A Man and a Woman” (1966), the Fellini classics “La Dolce Vita” (1960) and “8½” (1963) and Jacques Are going. Demy’s “Lola” (1961) died on Tuesday. She was once 92 years old.

Amy’s daughter Manuela Papatakis confirmed her death in a post on Instagram.

“Along with my daughter, Galad, and my granddaughter, Mila, we are deeply saddened to announce the passing of our mother, Anouk Aimee,” she wrote. “I was with him when he died this morning at his home in Paris.”

According to journalist Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, Amy has been described in an encyclopedia as “an aloof but charming presence on the screen”, often described as “regal,” “intelligent” and “mysterious”. . , “an aura of disturbing and mysterious beauty that has earned her the status of one of the hundred sexiest stars in film history (in a 1995 poll conducted by Empire magazine).”

Amy was Oscar-nominated for Best Actress for her role opposite Jean-Louis Trintignant in “A Man and a Woman” – one of a very small series of actors to be nominated for a performance in a foreign film. . The film’s director, Claude Lelouch, was also nominated (he won the Palme d’Or at Cannes), and “A Man and a Woman” won the Oscars for Best New Screenplay and Foreign Language Film.

Made on a small budget, this film was also very successful commercially. Amy played a production associate in the film industry who meets a race-car driver organized by Trintignant at a school where one child is boarding each other.

Reviewing the 1966 film for the DVD Verdict web page in 2003, Dan Mancini wrote that “A Man and a Woman” serves as a reminder that sleekly constructed modern Hollywood romances are not the only way to go, Romantic films can benefit from the raw aesthetics of low-budget independents. Aimee and Trintignant are movie-star beautiful, but Lelouch’s style gives them both a powerful humanity, as do their performances. Like any respectable disciple of the French New Wave, Lelouch gives his actors plenty of room to improvise, reaching the heart of the scene by any natural route. The tentative nature of the interactions between Amy and Trintignant – their intermittent eye contact, the pregnant pauses, the nervous laughter – (in a good way) diminishes their dazzling good looks and movie-star mystique.

Again in 1965, selection stated: “Anouk Aimée has a mature beauty and an ability to project an inner quality that helps offset the apparent triviality of her character, and this is thanks to the perceptive Jean-Louis Trintignant as the man. also applies.”

(Lelouch brought the two actors back together for 1986’s “A Man and a Woman, Twenty Years Later”, which was far less successful.)

In 1961’s “Lola”, Jacques Demy’s first film, which was not liked by even the closest, Aimee played the “charming and innocent Lola, the mysterious woman of the world who attracts the attention of a trio of lovers in her universal portrayal In the words of critic Dennis Schwartz, a vulnerable cabaret singer is in love but still hopes for the return of her lover, in the film, set within the port of the city of Nantes, which most people unfortunately prefer to travel without. (Amy reprized the role of Lola in Demy’s Los Angeles-shot 1969 film “Model Shop,” in which her character worked in a photo studio where men could rent cameras and take pictures of naked women.) She meets a young man played by Gary Lockwood. The Fresh York Occasions stated that Lockwood’s personality “meets Miss Amy, falls in love with her, and has much discussion about war, marriage, love, and politics.” Then they separate.”)

In Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita,” Marcello Mastroianni plays a journalist who navigates the circle of the glamorous people of Rome while grappling with numerous romantic entanglements. Marcello is attracted to Amy’s Maddalena, who is beautiful and exceptionally gorgeous but also bored and uncaring, and his attraction to her is half-hearted.

In Fellini’s “8½”, a film declared the director’s “obvious masterpiece” in a 1964 review by Esquire’s Dwight Macdonald, Mastroianni’s film directorship came in a heavy confrontation with a certified and personal situation, making them anxious and unsure of what to do next; He seeks solace or at least goes to a conditioning spa, but people who trust him, including his mistress and his visiting highbrow, chain-smoking wife, played by Amy, use him. . Amy’s Louisa, in the words of Roger Ebert, “is angry at him – because of his bad taste in women and also because of his infidelity.”

The Fresh New York Times declared that there was much “wonderful” in the film, including “some brilliant and charming acting – Sandra Milo as the mistress, Guido Alberti as the producer, Anouk Amy as the director’s jealous wife, Claudia Cardinale ‘Dream Girl,’ and more.’

Amy also gave a memorable performance in Belgian filmmaker André Delvaux’s 1968 surrealist classic “Un soir, un train”, in which she starred opposite Yves Montand, he as a linguistics lecturer in Flanders, she his girlfriend. , as a French woman who designs costumes for a theatre. And feeling uncomfortable in her foreign setting month, she displays false signals to ward off the upcoming phase of their dating.

Amy and Dirk Bogarde had performed well in “Justin” (1969), but the film was given to George Cukor because another director had messed something up with it, and it didn’t last long until he actually got the picture. Play as a movie.

Keeping in mind that the actress does not appear in many English-language motion pictures, Amy’s look in Robert Aldrich’s 1962 Biblical epic “Sodom and Gomorrah,” in which she plays the evil queen of sodomites, One of the delicate hobbies.

Aimé did not work in film in the first half of the 1970s, returning in 1976 for the Lelouch film “Si c’est à refire” (Second Prospect), in which she starred alongside Catherine Deneuve.

In Marco Bellocchio’s “A Leap in the Dark” (1980), Amy starred alongside Michele Piccoli and Michele Placido, playing a woman filled with sadness and suicidal fantasies; Hoping to get better, she begins a courtship with a handsome actor (Placido), who is jealous of her brother (Piccoli), whom she raised. The film won an Emmy and Best Actress and Actor awards for Piccoli at the Cannes Film Festival, and Bellocchio was nominated for the Palme d’Or.

In Bernardo Bertolucci’s highly acclaimed 1981 film “Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man”, she played the wealthy, French-born wife of a Parma cheese factory owner (Ugo Tognazzi), whose son may or may not have been kidnapped.

Amy was the megastar of Henry Jaglom’s 2001 film “Festival in Cannes”, a satire of Hollywood wheeling and dealing in the middle of the film, aimed at the services and products of her persona, EMI display veteran Millie Marguand. , who is married to Maximilian, Victor of Schell. The Fresh York Occasions said: “Most of the film’s warmest moments that don’t feel forced are those of Millie and Victor, who have gone through a lot together to catch each other’s eye. As they fall in love, Reflecting on the marriage, the passion and the companionship, you feel the strength of the bond built over many decades. Ms. Amy and Mr. Shell emerge from the film with worldly dignity.”

She also starred in Robert Altman’s 1994 film “Pret a Porter” aka “Ready to Wear”, in which she played the mistress of Jean-Pierre Cassel, the head of the French Fashion Commission, who died in some unknown incident. Is. Amy’s personality is a managing fashion designer, and she and her son (Rupert Everett) get a chance to market their label to a Texas boot magnate through Lyle Lovett.

Nicole Françoise Florence Dreyfus was born in Paris, the daughter of actor Henry Murray (born Henry Dreyfus) and actress Geneviève Soraya.

Although her father was Jewish, she was raised in her mother’s Roman Catholic faith, although she converted to Judaism as an adult. She studied dance at the Marseille Opera, and she studied theater in England, after which she studied dramatic art and dance with André Bauer-Therond.

She made her film debut at the age of 14 in Henri Calf’s “La maison sous la mer” (1947) (she adopted her persona’s name, Anouk, as her stage name), and Marcel Carné’s ” She was one of the stars of “La Fleur”. De l’Age (1947), a film that was never completed and whose photographs are lost; That film’s co-writer, Jacques Prévert, nicknamed her “Amy”. She starred with Serge Reggiani in André Caete’s Romeo and Juliet story “Les Amants de Verona” (1949).

The actress made her English-language debut in Ronald Neame’s “Golden Salamander” in 1950; The tagline on the poster was “Introducing the hot new star of the year…Foreign ANOUK!”

The Fresh York Times said: “This film’s authentic Tunisian setting and atmosphere are its best points – these and a beautiful young woman now known as Anouk. Miss Anouk (if we should call her that) is a The sad but strong and humble girl who recently played a quite impressive role in a French film ‘The Lovers of Verona.’ And now, as a French girl living in a remote town in Tunisia, where during this picture Things happen, she continues to draw attention to herself.

Jacques Becker’s “Modigliani of Montparnasse” (1958) was a stepping stone for Aimee to the top roles that would soon be hers. In this pathetic biopic of the artist, she had a supporting role as Jeanne, a simple, rich woman with an interest in art who provides emotional support to vulnerable people Modigliani (played by Gérard Philippe) uses.

The Emmy’s biggest film was Charlotte de Turquim’s “Mins Alers!” Was. in 2012.

She won an Honorary César at the César Awards in France in 2002, an Honorary Blonde Berlin Undergo at the Berlin Movie Festival in 2003, and a Silver Medallion Award at Telluride in 2009.

Amy was married four times, first to Edouard Zimmerman (1949–50), second to Nikos Papatakis (1951–55), third to Pierre Barouh (1966–69), and to eldest generation actor Albert Finney (1970). -78). The perfect marriage led to the split.

He is survived by his daughter, Manuela Papatakis.