(Paris) She embodied the eternal feminine in A man and a woman whose famous “dabada-bada” went around the world: French actress Anouk Aimée, who died Tuesday at the age of 92, offered the cinema roles of unique elegance.
“I am so feminine and being a woman is an incredible strength,” said the woman who acquired international fame with Claude Lelouch’s film: Palme d’Or 1966 at Cannes, a Golden Globe for best actress and a nomination for the Oscar.
She found her partner Jean-Louis Trintignant in The Most Beautiful Years of a Life in 2019 for a reunion orchestrated by the director where the melancholic refrain “dabada-bada badaba-daba” still resonated, distorted in the collective memory into “chabada-bada”.
During her long career, Anouk Aimée has worked with the biggest names in cinema, such as Bernardo Bertolucci, Vittorio de Sica, André Delvaux, George Cukor and Robert Altman.
PHOTO DOMINIQUE FAGET, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Anouk Aimée, in 1984
She was an unforgettable Lola at Jaques Demy, a mysterious woman at Federico Fellini in The good life And Eight and a half. The one who worked a lot in Italy described Fellini as the “Mont Blanc” of cinema.
In 2003, she received a Golden Bear in Berlin for all of her work. In 2006, the Cannes Film Festival paid tribute to him. She won the Best Actress Prize there in 1980 for The jump into the void by Marco Bellocchio.
” Free woman ”
She said she preferred to shoot with men, “but if Jeanne Moreau offers me, I’ll go straight away…”
Anouk Aimée was married to the filmmaker Nico Papatakis, with whom she had a daughter, to the singer-songwriter Pierre Barouh (co-author, with the musician Francis Lai, of “dabada-bada badaba-daba”) and to British actor Albert Finney.
“You have to be feminine,” she insisted. Not having (in the couple) a power relationship with the other.” “I was lucky enough to be a free woman, but I didn’t play the bully. »
Born April 27, 1932 in Paris, Françoise Dreyfus, daughter of actors, took the first name Anouk following her first role in The House under the sea by Henri Calef (1947), from the age of 13. Following a suggestion from Jacques Prévert during another shoot, she then adopted the surname Aimée.
It was launched in 1949 by André Cayatte in Lovers of Veronathen goes on to films such as The Crimson Curtain (Alexandre Astruc), The man who watched the trains go by (Harold French), Boil Pot (Julien Duvivier), Montparnasse 19 (Jacques Becker).
We will see her later in Ready to wear by Robert Altman (1994). She will also tour in the United States for Cukor and Lumet.
PHOTO CHRISTOPHE SIMON, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Anouk Aimée and Claude Lelouch, in 2019.
Anouk Aimée said she could go a long time without filming. “I don’t know how to sell myself very well, I’m someone who waits. I need to be pushed,” she said.
She still appeared in more than 80 films… but refused the role played by Faye Dunaway in The Thomas Crown Affair (1968): “I was offered so many things, I was dizzy, I didn’t know anymore.”
Anouk Aimée lived in her Parisian house in Montmartre, cluttered with film cassettes, around cats and dogs. She was committed to the protection of nature and animals.