Biography: life and films
Anouk Aimée was born Françoise Judith Sorya Dreyfus, in
Paris, France on 26th April 1932. The daughter of two actors,
Geneviève Sorya and Henry Murray, she made her film debut at the
age of 14 in Henri Calef's
La Maison
sous la mer (1947). It was the character she played in
this film that provided the first half of her stage name, Anouk.
The second half, Aimée, was suggested by Jacques Prévert
when they met on her next film,
La
Fleur de l'âge (1947), the film Carné was unable to
complete through lack of funds. By the time she was to star in
her next film, playing Juliet to Serge Reggiani's Romeo in André
Cayatte's
Les Amants de Vérone
(1948), she was a fully fledged actress, having taken courses in drama
and dance. For the next decade, Aimée's screen career
proceeded at a moderate pace through supporting roles in such films as
Julien Duvivier's
Pot-Bouille (1957), Jacques
Becker's
Montparnasse 19 (1958) and
La Tête contre les murs
(1959).
Anouk Aimée's breakthrough came when Federico Fellini cast her
as Maddalena in
La Dolce vita (1960). This,
together with her lead role in Jacques Demy's
Lola
(1961), made her name as an actress and set her on the road to
international stardom. In the mid-60s, her career received a
further boost through her role in Claude Lelouch's
Un homme et une femme (1966),
the most widely seen French film of the decade. Since,
Aimée has enjoyed a high profile career on stage and
screen. She has appeared in over seventy films and worked with
such prominent filmmakers as André Delvaux (
Un
soir, un train), George Cukor (
Justine) and Robert Altman (
Prêt-à-Porter).
In 1980, she received the Best Actress award at Cannes for her
performance in Marco Bellocchio's
Salto nel vuoto (1980) and in
2002 she was awarded an honorary César for her life's work.
© James Travers 2013
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