Anouk Aimée, a French movie star nominated for an Academy Award in 1967 for playing the lead role in Claude Lelouch’s “A Man and a Woman” died Tuesday in Paris, her family said. She was 92.
“With my daughter, Galaad, and my granddaughter, Mila, we have great sadness to announce the departure of my mother Anouk Aimée,” her daughter, Manuela Papatakis, wrote on Instagram. “I was right by her side when she passed away this morning at her home in Paris.”
No cause of death was given.
Born in Paris in 1932 as Nicole Françoise Florence Dreyfus, Aimée began acting as a young teenager. She appeared in her first film, the French drama “La Maison sous la Mer” (“The House on the Sea”) in 1946 playing a character named Anouk.
After appearing in several films during the ’50s and ’60s, Aimée began her trajectory towards international recognition in 1960, after appearing in the Frederico Fellini classic “La Dolce Vita” alongside Marcello Mastroianni.
She would work with the celebrated Italian director again three years later, playing the role of Luisa Anselmi in “8½,” widely considered Fellini’s masterpiece.
In 1961, tshe played Lola in Jacques Demy’s film of the same name, a role she would reprise in Demy’s 1969 “Model Shop,” the director’s first English-language film.
Her award-winning portrayal of Anne Gauthier in the 1966 French romantic drama “A Man and a Woman” solidified Aimée’s status as an international movie star.
The relatively small-budget French film went on to become a global box office hit. It also won two Oscars the following year for Best Original Screenplay and Best Foreign Language Film.
Aimée played a young widow who meets a race-car driver, played by Jean-Louis Trintignant, who had lost his wife to suicide. Her Oscar-nominated performance was also honored with a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award for best foreign actress.
Throughout her seven-decade career, Aimée appeared in more than 70 films. She received an honorary César Award in 2002 and an honorary Golden Bear Award the following year.
She last appeared on the big screen in 2019 in “The Best Years of a Life,” a Lelouch-directed continuation of “A Man and a Woman,” in which Aimée and Trintignant played the same characters 53 years later.
Aimée was married and divorced four times. She is survived by her daughter, Manuela Papatakis.
