Anouk Aimée, the radiant French star of ‘A Man and a Woman’ and ‘La Dolce Vita,’ dies at 92

PARIS– Anouk Aimée, the radiant French star and dark-eyed beauty of classic films including Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” and Claude Lelouch’s “A Man and a Woman,” has died. She was 92 years old.

Aimée’s agent, Sébastien Perrolat, said in a text message to The Associated Press that Aimée died Tuesday morning “surrounded by her loved ones.” He did not give the cause of death.

“I was by her side when she died this morning, at her home in Paris,” Aimée’s daughter, Manuela Papatakis, wrote on Instagram.

Aimée has worked with many acclaimed directors, including Jacques Demy, Bernardo Bertolucci, Jacques Becker, Robert Altman and Sidney Lumet. She was perhaps best known for 1966’s “A Man and a Woman,” in which she starred opposite Jean-Louis Trintignant as a widow who meets a widowed race car driver (Trintignant) at the boarding school where they each have a child.

The film was a huge success, winning the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Aimee won a Golden Globe for her performance and was nominated for an Oscar. The film won the Oscar for Lelouch’s screenplay and best foreign language film.

But Aimée’s career spanned seven decades — she reunited with Lelouch and Trintignant for 2019’s “The Best Years of a Lifetime” — and throughout that time she remained an exceptionally elegant and enigmatic presence. She starred in Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” (1960) as the seductive socialite Maddalena and again in the director’s “8 1/2” (1963) as the ex-wife of Marcello Mastroianni’s filmmaker.

Fellini once said that Aimée “represents the kind of woman who leaves you confused and confused – until death.” He said she belonged to the pantheon of “great and mysterious queens” of cinema, comparing her to Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and Joan Crawford.

“A film is always much richer when the actors have the confidence not to explain, but just to do; when they feel safe enough to leave things open,” Aimée told The Guardian in 2007.

Aimée was born Nicole Françoise Florence Dreyfus on April 27, 1932, to actor parents Henri Dreyfus (who performed under the name Henry Murray) and Genevieve Sorya. At age 13, Aimée was walking down a Paris street when director Henri Calef stopped her and asked if she would like to make a film. Aimée later said that she was going to see “Double Indemnity” with her mother.

Aimée adopted the name of her character, Anouk, from her first film: “The Submarine House”. “Aimée” — the French word meaning “beloved” — came from the poet Jacques Prévert, who co-wrote her first leading role in 1951’s “The Lovers of Verona,” a modern “Romeo and Juliet.”

After “La Dolce Vita,” Aimée starred in Jacques Demy’s “Lola” (1961), a New Wave soap opera about a cabaret artist with a series of lovers. “Lola”, Demy’s first film, was less appreciated at the time, but today it is considered a highlight of French New Wave cinema. Eight years later, Aimée reprized the role in “Model Shop,” set in Los Angeles, playing a woman who works in a photography studio.

Aimée was married and divorced four times. The first three marriages – to Edouad Zimmermann, filmmaker Nikos Papatakis, actor and composer Pierre Barouh – did not last four years. The oldest was with British actor Albert Finney, to whom she was married from 1970 to 1978.

Although Aimée had experiences with Hollywood, including Lumet’s “The Appointment” and Altman’s “Prêt-à-Porter,” she remained largely a European film actress. Among the roles she turned down was Vicki Anderson in “The Thomas Crown Affair,” a role that ended up going to Faye Dunaway, who starred opposite Steve McQueen.

But Aimée continued to be a legend in France. She won best actress at Cannes for the 1980 dark comedy “A Leap in the Dark.” In 2002, she received a lifetime achievement award at the Césars, the French equivalent of the Oscars. On Tuesday, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, in a statement, called her “the symbol of elegance, talent, commitment.”

“The secret – it was Fellini who taught me this – is that the most important thing of all is to listen,” Aimée told The Guardian about acting. “Just listen to what the other characters say. And don’t take it too seriously. So, there are no regrets.”

___

AP Film Writer Jake Coyle reported from New York.