Giroud, Françoise

(1916-2003)

   Director and screenwriter. Born Françoise Gourdji in Switzerland, Françoise Giroud got her start in cinema at the age of only fifteen. She worked as the script girl on Marc Allégret's Fanny (1932) and went on to work as assistant director, often under the name "Gourdji" on a number of films, including Jacques de Baroncelli's Roi de Camargue (1934), Edmont T. Gréville's Remous (1934), René Sti's Le Bébé de l'escadron (1935), Yves Mirande and Léonid Moguy's Baccara (1935), Pierre Billon's Courrier Sud (1936), Allegret's Aventure à Paris (1936) and Les Amants terribles (1936), Alexander Esway's Hercule (1937) and Barnabé (1938), and Pierre Colombier's Rois du Sport (1938).

   Giroud also worked as a screenwriter, writing or cowriting the screenplays for André Berthomieu's Promesse à l'inconnue (1942), Baroncelli's Marie la misère (1945), Marcel L'Herbier's Au petit bonheur (1946), Jacques Becker's Antoine et Antoinette (1947), Jean Stelli's Dernier Amour (1949), Allégret's Julietta (1953), and Francis Girod's Le Bon plaisir (1984), which was adapted from her own novel.

   Ultimately, Giroud left cinema for a career in journalism. She wrote for L 'Express and Elle, and while at L 'Express, she coined the term Nouvelle Vague or New Wave to describe the innovations in cinema brought about by directors such as François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais, Claude Chabrol, Agnès Varda, Louis Malle, and others associated with the Cahiers du cinéma. Giroud would also go on to hold several cabinet-level positions in the French government.