Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1966, for her role in “A Man and a Woman”, she said she experienced cinema “like a romantic encounter”. This Tuesday, June 18, actress Anouk Aimée died at home, in her Parisian house in Montmartre, surrounded by cats and dogs, at the age of 92, announced her agent, Sébastien Perrolat.
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Anouk Aimée has long embodied French elegance. Born April 27, 1932 in Paris, Françoise Dreyfus, daughter of actors, she grew up far from her parents to escape the roundups of Jews during the Second World War. She was 13 years old when she played for the first time in the cinema, the role of a teenager named Anouk… Her actress name, Anouk Aimée, was then suggested to her by the poet Jacques Prévert.
With a pale face, jet-black hair and large black eyes, she fascinated the young directors of her generation. André Cayatte launched it in 1949 with Lovers of Verona. Afterwards, she was hired by Julien Duvivier to Boil Pot and by Jacques Becker for Montparnasse 19. Then, she burst onto the screen as a mysterious woman in The good life And Eight and a half by Federico Fellini which caused a scandal at the time. Jacques Demy who entrusted him with the leading role of Lolaa dancer and singer, then she became the muse of Claude Lelouch…
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It’s with A man and a woman in 1966 that she enjoyed international success, winning the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, the Golden Globe for Best Actress and an Oscar nomination. After a few years also filming in Hollywood, she devoted herself to theater. She played there tirelessly from the 1990s to 2014, alongside the biggest actors.
On the private side, she was married to the filmmaker Nico Papatakis with whom she had a daughter, to Pierre Barouh who composed the famous refrain “dabada-bada badaba-daba” for her, and to the British actor Albert Finney. In 2003, the Berlinale awarded her a Golden Bear for her entire career before she made a moving return to the Cannes Film Festival in 2019 by reforming, alongside Trintignant, the legendary couple ofA man and a woman. It was Claude Lelouch who shot this remarkable sequel, The best years of a lifethe last of more than 80 films in which Anouk Aimée will remain an unforgettable actress.