Don’t touch the grisbi, Elevator for the scaffold, Jules and Jim, the Valseuses… Jeanne Moreau, who died five years ago to the day, this Sunday, July 31, 2022, was a very talented actress. In 1992, she won the César for best actress for The Crone who walked in the sea, followed by three Honorary Cesars in 1995, 1998 and 2008. She was also praised for her performances by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She also became the first woman elected to the Academy of Fine Arts of the Institut de France, in the Artistic Creation section for cinema and audiovisual.
A success in the cinema, but also with boys. “I have seduced many men. I have always been towards men who had talent. I didn’t have lovers to have lovers“, she has already declared. A seducer at heart, she notably lived an idyll with the bisexual director Tony Richardson. The latter had left his partner at the time, the actress Vanessa Redgrave, to put himself in a relationship with the Frenchwoman, who had visibly managed to capsize her heart, while “she didn’t ask for anything“, can we read in an article from Paris Match devoted to the sentimental life of the actress.
She “gave me a murderous look”
The two lovebirds were also complementary on the big screen since the scenario of the film Miss, directed by the Briton, had been proposed by Jeanne Moreau at the time. A text written in 1951, which was entitled Forbidden Dreams / The Other Side of the Dream.
The one who shared a secret link with Vanessa Paradis also lived a passionate story with the musician Sacha Distel. The latter had already recounted his meeting with the actress: “One day, I was stringing together the songs, head in the ropes as if to better forget my worries, and when I raised my head, a beautiful brunette was there and gave me a murderous look (…) “It is Jeanne Moreau,” the bartender slipped me. I found his number (thanks to Uncle Raymond), which I immediately dialed on my dial. She greeted me with this sentence: ‘I was waiting for your call.’ ‘I fell in love the first night. There was enough. Jeanne was a kind of tornado, the lover that every young man dreams of.“, he revealed.
“With my dark circled eyes, my drooping mouth, I never took myself for a beauty. I didn’t do anything to attract attention…“, has already told the actress, who will have marked the spirits through her passionate love stories.