Jeanne Moreau

Jeanne Moreau, born in 1928, French theater and motion-picture actor, who achieved international fame with her enigmatic performances in some of the most influential French films of the 1950s and 1960s. Born in Paris, she was educated at the Conservatoire National d'Art Dramatique, also in Paris. From 1948 to 1952 she was a member of the prestigious French national theater, the Comédie Française, where she was introduced to classical drama and developed her versatile range. Among her most celebrated theater performances are roles in Prinz Friedrich von Homburg (The Prince of Homburg), by German dramatist Heinrich von Kleist, in 1953; and Der Ritt über den Bodensee (The Ride Across Bodensee), by Austrian dramatist Peter Handke, in 1973.

Moreau's first motion-picture appearance was in Dernier Amour (1948, Last Love), though she gained more recognition in the gangster thriller Touchez-Pas au Grisbi (Don't Touch the Loot, 1953) and in the title role of La Reine Margot (1954, Queen Margot). She became a star of the French screen with charismatic performances in two innovative films by French director Louis Malle, Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Lift to the Scaffold, 1957) and the controversial erotic drama Les Amants (The Lovers, 1958). Leading roles in avant-garde films such as La Notte (1961, The Night), by Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni, and in the influential film Jules et Jim (1962), by French director François Truffaut, further established Moreau's international reputation as a leading actor of European cinema.

Drawn to idiosyncratic roles and unconventional films, Moreau appeared in Eva (Eve, 1962), by American expatriate director Joseph Losey, who cast Moreau as a power-hungry seductress; and Le Journal d'une femme de chambre (Diary of a Chambermaid, 1964), by Spanish director Luis Buñuel, in which she plays an ambitious maid amidst a corrupt middle class society. Moreau has also performed in major international productions, such as The Last Tycoon (1976), Querelle (1982), and Bis ans Ende der Welt (Until the End of the World, 1991).