Delphine Seyrig

Delphine Seyrig
Born	Delphine Claire Beltiane Seyrig April 10, 1932(1932-04-10) Beirut, Lebanon
Died	October 15, 1990 (aged 58) Paris, France

Delphine Claire Beltiane Seyrig (April 10, 1932, Beirut, Lebanon – October 15, 1990) was a stage and film actress and a film director.

Early life

Seyrig was the daughter of an archeologist Henry Seyrig and Hermine de Saussure, the sister of the composer Francis Seyrig. She grew up in Lebanon and her family relocated to New York City when she was 10 years old. Later her parents returned to Lebanon and sent her to school in France.

Career

As a young woman, Seyrig studied acting at the Comédie de Saint-Étienne, training under Jean Dasté, and at the Centre Dramatique de l'Est. She appeared briefly in small roles in the TV series Sherlock Holmes. In 1956 she returned to New York City and studied at the Actors Studio, and in 1958, she appeared in her first film, Pull My Daisy. In New York she met director Alain Resnais who asked her to star in his film, L'Année dernière à Marienbad. Her performance brought her international recognition and she moved to Paris. Among her roles of this period, is the older married woman in Francois Truffaut's Baisers volés (1968).

During the 1960s and 1970s, Seyrig worked with such directors as François Truffaut, Luis Buñuel, Marguerite Duras, Fred Zinnemann and Alain Resnais. She achieved recognition for both her stage and film work, and was named best actress at the Venice Film Festival for her role in Resmnais' Muriel ou Le temps d'un retour (1963). She played many diverse roles, and because she was fluent in French, English and German, she appeared in films in all three languages, including a number of Hollywood productions. She may be most widely known among English speakers for her role as Colette de Montpelier in Zinnemann's 1973 film Day of the Jackal.

Throughout her career, Seyrig used her celebrity status to promote women's rights. Of the three films she directed, her most important was the 1977 production Sois belle et tais-toi (Be Pretty and Shut up) that included actresses Shirley MacLaine, Maria Schneider and Jane Fonda, amongst others, speaking frankly about the level of sexism they had to deal with in the film industry. In 1982 Seyrig was a key member of the group that established the Paris-based "Centre Audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir", which maintains a large archive of women's filmed and recorded work and produces work by and about women. In 1989, Seyrig was given a festival tribute at the Créteil International Women's Film Festival, France.

Private life

Seyrig married (and was later divorced from) the American painter Jack Youngerman (b. 1926), who had studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Seyrig died in Paris in 1990, aged 58, apparently from lung cancer (although some sources simply state "lung disease"), and was interred there in the Cimetière du Montparnasse.

Filmography (actress)

• Pull My Daisy (1958)
• Last Year at Marienbad (L'année dernière à Marienbad) (1961)
• Muriel ou Le temps d'un retour (1963)
• Who Are You, Polly Magoo? (1966)
• Comédie (1966)
• Accident (1967)
• Stolen Kisses (1968)
• La musica (1968)
• Mr. Freedom (1969)
• La voie lactée (1969)
• El Vientre de la ballena (1969)
• Peau d'Âne (1970)
• Le Lys dans la vallée (TV) (1970)
• Daughters of Darkness (Le Rouge aux Lèvres) (1971)
• Tartuffe (TV) (1971)
• The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)
• Le Journal d'un suicidé (1972)
• Le Boucher, la star et l'orpheline (1973)
• The Day of the Jackal (1973)
• A Doll's House (1973)
• The Black Windmill (1974)
• Diselo con flores (Dites-le avec des fleurs) (1974)
• Le Cri du coeur (1974)
• Le Jardin qui bascule (1974)
• India Song (1975)
• Der Letzte Schrei (1975)
• Aloïse (1975)
• Jeanne Dielman 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1976)
• Dear Micheal (Caro Michele) (1976)
• Scum Manifesto (1976)
• Baxter, Vera Baxter (1977)
• Son nom de Venise dans Calcutta desert (1976)
• Je t'aime, tu danses (1977)
• Repérages (1977)
• Utkozben (1979)
• Chère inconnue (1980)
• Le Chemin perdu (1980)
• Le Petit Pommier (TV) (1981)
• The Man of Destiny (TV) (1981)
• Freak Orlando (1981)
• Le Grain de sable (1983)
• Dorian Gray im Spiegel der Boulevardpresse (1984)
• Grosse (1985)
• Les Étonnements d'un couple moderne (TV) (1985)
• Golden Eighties (1986)
• Letters Home (1986)
• Seven Women, Seven Sins (1987)
• Johanna D'Arc of Mongolia (1989)
• Une saison de feuilles (TV) (1989)
• La Pagaille (1990)

Filmography (director)

• Sois belle et tais-toi (1981)
• Scum Manifesto (1976)
• Maso et Miso vont en bateau (1975)

References

• Adapted from the article Delphine Seyrig, from Wikinfo, licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

External links

• Delphine Seyrig at the Internet Movie Database
• Delphine Seyrig at Find A Grave