Aimée, Anouk

(1932- )

   Actress. Anouk Aimée was born Nicole Françoise Dreyfus in Paris. The daughter of actors, she studied theater and dance in France and England. She made her film debut at the age of thirteen in Henri Calef's La Maison sous la mer (1947), and adopted the name Anouk after the character she played in that film. The surname Aimée was suggested by the writer Jacques Prévert, who wrote the screenplay for her second film, André Cayatte's Les amants du Vérone (1949). She later starred in Alexandre Astruc's sketch Le rideau cramoisi, (1953) and his first feature-length film, Les mauvaises rencontres (1955). She played a supporting role in Georges Franju's debut feature La Tête contre les murs (1958), where she worked alongside Jean-Pierre Mocky. Mocky would later cast her in his first feature, Les Drageurs (1959). Two of her most prominent performances were in Italian director Federico Fellini's pivotal films La Dolce Vita (1960) and 8'A (1963). She is equally renowned for her work in Jacques Demy's Lola (1961), and Claude Lelouch's Un homme et une femme (1966), for which she won a Golden Globe and a British Film Academy Award. She starred in Lelouch's sequel, Un homme et une femme: vingt ans déjà (1986).

   Aimée has received international accolades for her work in art films, and speaks French, Italian, and English fluently. She received the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival for her role in Marco Bellocchio's Le saut dans le vide in 1980. In the 1980s and 1990s, she gave cosmopolitan performances in films by Bernardo Bertolucci, Jerzy Skolimowski, and Robert Altman. Throughout her career, Aimée has continued to work with Lelouch in Si c'était à refaire (1976), Viva la vie! (1983), Hommes, femmes: mode d'emploi (1996), and Une pour toutes (1999), in addition to Demy in The Model Shop (1968) and La table tournante (1988). She has also worked extensively with her husband, Elie Chouraqui. She acted in his Mon premier amour (1978), Qu'est-ce qui fait courir David? (1981), and Les Marmottes (1993). Her celebrity was mirrored somewhat in fiction as she portrayed a famous actress in Henri Jaglom's Festival in Cannes (2001). She received an honorary César Award in 2002 and an honorary Golden Berlin Bear in 2003.