Annie Girardot
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Annie Girardot
Biography
More handsome than beautiful, versatile Annie Girardot was one of the most popular female stars in France during the 1970s. Girardot typically played strong-willed, independent, hard-working, and often lonely women, imbuing her characters with an earthiness and reality that endeared her with women undergoing similar daily struggles. It is small wonder, then, that Girardot became one of the symbols of the early-'70s feminist movement in France.
Girardot made her professional debut with the distinguished Comedie-Francaise theater troupe in 1954 after she graduated with honors from the Conservatoire de Paris. She remained with the troupe through 1957, occasionally taking time off to perform on radio, television, and in Parisian nightclubs. She made an inauspicious film debut in Trieze a Table in 1955. In early roles, Girardot was typically cast as doomed women of dubious origins in dark films, but she didn't make much impact until she played Nadia, a prostitute whom meets a tragic end in Luchino Visconti's Rocco et Ses Freres (Rocco and His Brothers) (1960). During filming she became romantically linked with co-star Renato Salvatori, who played the character who stabbed her character 13 times. They married, but divorced many years later.
Through the early '60s, Girardot played leads in a few Italian pictures directed by either Visconti or Marco Ferreri. Girardot also played leads in numerous run-of-the-mill French films. After 15 years, Girardot finally became a star when she was cast as the tragic teacher Danielle in Andre Cayatte's Mourir d'Aimer (Death of Love) (1970), the fact-based tale of a middle-aged teacher whose affair with a much younger student made her the object of bourgeoisie ridicule and harassment and led her to suicide. Though she appeared in many dramas during the '60s and '70s, Girardot never forgot her Comedie Francaise experiences and proved herself an adept comedienne in such films as La Vielle Fille (1971), Cause Toujours Tu M'Interesses (1979), and Tendre Poulet (1977). Through the '70s and into the early 1980s, she worked with some of her country's best directors, and she also occasionally turned up with supporting roles in English-language productions, such as a memorable turn as the French teacher in the Gene Hackman-Barbra Streisand comedy All Night Long (1981). By the mid-late '80s however, her career was in sharp decline and her film appearances became sporadic. In 1995, Girardot did experience a brief comeback playing a peasant wife in Claude Lelouch's Les Misérables. The role won her a Cesar (the French Oscar) for Best Actress. Upon accepting the award, a joyous and tearful Girardot expressed her happiness that she had not been forgotten. She also offered her heartfelt thanks to her many film industry colleagues.
In subsequent years, Girardot predominantly retired from the screen. She developed Alzheimer's Disease, which further crippled her inability to act. Upon the actress's death at age 79 in Paris, French president Nicolas Sarkozy referenced one of her final projects - her participation in a documentary about Alzheimer's - as a testament to the strength of her magnanimity. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
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Annie Girardot
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Annie Girardot
| Annie Girardot | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 25 October 1931 Paris, France |
| Died | 28 February 2011 (aged 79) Paris, France |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1954–2008 |
| Spouse | Renato Salvatori (1962–1988; his death) |
Annie Girardot (25 October 1931 – 28 February 2011) was a three-time César Award winning French actress. [1][2] She often played strong-willed, independent, hard-working, and often lonely women, imbuing her characters with an earthiness and reality that endeared her with women undergoing similar daily struggles.[3]
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Career
Over the course of a five-decade career, she starred in nearly 150 films. She is a three-time César Award winner (1977, 1996, 2002), a two-time Molière Award winner, a BAFTA nominee, and a recipient of several international prizes including the Volpi Cup (Best actress) at the 1965 Venice Film Festival for Three Rooms in Manhattan.
After graduating from the prestigious Conservatoire de la rue Blanche in 1954 with the "First Prize in Modern and Classical Comedy", she joined the Comédie Française, where she was a resident actor from 1954-57.
In 1955, she began her film career, making her film debut in Treize à table, but it was with theatre that she started to attract the attention of critics. Her performance in Jean Cocteau's play La Machine à écrire in 1956 was admired by the author who called her "The finest dramatic temperament of the Postwar period".[4]
In 1956 she was awarded the Prix Suzanne Bianchetti as best up-and-coming young actress but only with Luchino Visconti's epic Rocco e i suoi fratelli (Rocco and His Brothers, 1960), she was able to draw the public's attention to her. In 1962, she married Italian actor Renato Salvatori. Travelling back and forth between two film careers in France and Italy, Girardot also worked with renown Italian directors, including Marco Ferreri in the scandalous The Ape Woman (1964), which became one of the main attractions at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival. In 1968, she also starred in the cult anti-consumerism French film Erotissimo (Gérard Pirès, 1968)[5].
Famously ignored by French New Wave directors (with the exception of Claude Lelouch), Girardot found her glory in popular cinema alongside more established and traditional directors such as Jean Delannoy, Michel Boisrond, André Cayatte, Gilles Grangier, or André Hunebelle[6]
By the end of the 1960s, she had become a movie star and a box-office magnet in France with such films as Vice and Virtue (1963); Live for Life (1967); Love Is a Funny Thing (1969); and Mourir d'Aimer (Death of Love, 1970), the fact-based tale of a middle-aged teacher whose affair with a much younger student made her the object of bourgeoisie ridicule. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe, and remains Girardot's biggest box office hit in France. Throughout the 1970s, Girardot came back and forth between drama and comedy, proving herself an adept comedienne in such successful comedies as Claude Zidi's La Zizanie, Michel Audiard's She Does Not Drink, Smoke or Flirt But... She Talks and Philippe de Broca's Dear Detective. In 1974, she starred in the hit teen movie, La Gifle, as Isabelle Adjani's mother. In 1972, she said in an interview to The New York Times, citing as Exhibit A her role as a sideshow freak in The Ape Woman, “I think I’ve proven that I’m opposed to typecasting. I believe that the acting of any role — from duchess to kitchen slavey — must be a form of transformation".[1] In 1977, she won her first César Award for Best Actress portraying the title character in the drama Docteur Françoise Gailland. By the end of the 1970s, she had become the highest paid actress in France, and the press nicknamed her "La Girardot" in reference to the fact that her name alone was enough to guarantee the success of a film.[7]
The 1980s were less kind, as her career floundered and parts dwindled. However, Girardot had a major comeback on the big screen playing a peasant wife in Claude Lelouch's Les Misérables. The role won her a second César Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1996. Upon accepting the award, a joyous and tearful Girardot expressed her happiness that she had not been forgotten in a speech that remained very famous.[8] In 1992, she was the Head of the Jury at the 42nd Berlin International Film Festival.[9]
In 2002, she was awarded the César Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in The Piano Teacher. She collaborated with director Michael Haneke again, in Caché (2005).
On stage she had a triumph in 1974 with Madame Marguerite, which became her signature role, which she reprised on numerous occasions until 2002. That year she was awarded the Molière Award for the role, along with a Honorary Molière Award for her entire stage career.
Private life
She married Italian actor Renato Salvatori in 1962. They had a daughter, Giulia, and later separated but never divorced.
Later life and death
After going public in the 21 September 2006 issue of Paris Match with the news that she was suffering from Alzheimer's disease, she became a symbol of the illness in France.
On 28 February 2011, Girardot died in a hospital in Paris, aged 79. She was interred at Père-Lachaise Cemetery, in Paris.[10]
A year after her death, the 37th annual César Awards 2012 selected a picture of Annie Girardot from the 1962 film Rocco and His Brothers as the official promotional poster of the ceremony, during which she was paid tribute with a retrospective montage of her most memorable roles on film, in the presence of her daughter and granddaughter.[11]
Filmography
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References
- ^ a b http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/movies/02girardot.html?_r=1&src=twrhp
- ^ http://moncinema.cyberpresse.ca/nouvelles-et-critiques/chroniqueurs/chronique/14138-mourir-daimer.html
- ^ http://www.lesinrocks.com/cine/cinema-article/t/60715/date/2011-02-28/article/annie-girardot-1931-2011/
- ^ http://www.20minutes.fr/cinema/678113-cinema-l-actrice-annie-girardot-decedee-lundi
- ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vXnfwYtHQ0
- ^ http://www.lepoint.fr/culture/annie-girardot-la-gouaille-energique-mais-fragile-du-cinema-francais-28-02-2011-1300739_3.php
- ^ Douteau. Caroline. "Annie Girardot, une femme libre", Télé 7 jours no 2650, p. 32
- ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2srC0wOQYvQ
- ^ "Berlinale: 1992 Juries". berlinale.de. http://www.berlinale.de/en/archiv/jahresarchive/1992/04_jury_1992/04_Jury_1992.html. Retrieved 2011-03-27.
- ^ "Annie Girardot: la comédienne est morte"
- ^ http://www.academie-cinema.org/evenements/actualites/affiche-37eme-ceremonie-cesar,2012,13.html
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Mentioned in
La Vie Continue
(1981 Drama Film)
Trois Chambres a Manhattan
(1965 Drama Film)
Tendre Poulet
(1977 Comedy Film)
Renato Salvatori
(Actor, Drama/Thriller)
Prisonnières
(1989 Drama Film)
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