Looking back at Anouk Aimée's career as French actress noted for ‘A Man and a Woman’ and ‘La Dolce Vita’ dies at 92

"The Best Years Of A Life (Les Plus Belles Annees D
Anouk Aimée dead at 92 (Image via Getty Images)

French actress Nicole Françoise Florence Dreyfus, known professionally as Anouk Aimée, has died at 92. The actress' daughter Manuela Papatakis announced her mother's death through Instagram on Tuesday, June 18. Aimée died on Tuesday morning at her home in Paris when she was at her bedside.

Anouk Aimée won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 1966 Claude Lelouch classic, A Man and a Woman. Some of her other prominent films include La Dolce Vita and 8½, among many other titles.


Anouk Aimée was an Academy Award nominee and had an 8-decade career

Anouk Aimée's daughter Manuela Papatakis confirmed her mother's death through a post on Tuesday. Alongside a black-and-white picture of her mom, Manuela wrote:

"With my daughter, Galaad, and my granddaughter, Mila, we have great sadness to announce the departure of my mother Anouk Aimée."

She further wrote:

"I was right by her side when she passed away this morning at her home in Paris.💞"

Aimée enjoyed a film career that spanned decades filled with many highlights. Born to a Jewish father and a Catholic mother in 1932, the actress initially used the name Françoise Dreyfus. Her very first credit was a 1947 French film called La maison sous la mer.

youtube-cover

In the film, a 14-yea-old Aimée portrayed a character named Anouk. She later started using her character's name as her own and further supplemented it with Aimée, which was given to her by French poet and screenwriter Jacques Prévert, who co-wrote 1949's The Lovers Of Verona, the first film in which the actress appeared as a lead.

Throughout the 50s, Anouk Aimée appeared in a wide variety of European movies like Contraband Spain, Noche de tormenta, Les mauvaises rencontres alongside Jean-Claude Pascal and Head Against the Wall alongside Pierre Brasseur, among many other films.

However, Aimée burst onto the scene as an international star in 1960 with the Federico Fellini classic La Dolce Vita. In the film, she played the role of a wealthy heiress named Maddalena who gets with a reporter named Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni), who she found in an exclusive nightclub.

The actress' stardom continued to rise with the release of Jacques Demy's 1961 film Lola, which saw Aimée portray a cabaret dancer and a single mother of the same name. Later in 1963, Anouk Aimée graced screens with Federico Fellini's 8½, which saw her portray Mastroianni's character Guido Anselmi's estranged wife Luisa.

Three years later, in 1966, Anouk Aimée starred in Claude Lelouch's A Man and a Woman alongside Jean-Louis Trintignant. The movie was an international hit and regarded as an important film for the French New Wave of cinema.

A Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination for the film cemented Aimée as an international 1960s icon. The movie also won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

youtube-cover

Aimée also appeared in the 1987 sequel of the film A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later and the last film of the trilogy 2019's The Best Years of a Life, which was the last ever film credit for Aimée in a career-spanning 92 credits and eight decades.

Anouk Aimée was married four times in her lifetime. First to Edouard Zimmermann, then to Greek filmmaker Nico Papatakis, French writer and composer Pierre Barouh, and finally to English actor Albert Finney from 1970 to 1978. Aimée's daughter Manuela Papatakis was born during the actress' marriage to Nico Papatakis.

Quick Links

Edited by Pradyot Hegde
Sportskeeda logo
Close menu
WWE
WWE
NBA
NBA
NFL
NFL
MMA
MMA
Tennis
Tennis
NHL
NHL
Golf
Golf
MLB
MLB
Soccer
Soccer
F1
F1
WNBA
WNBA
More
More
bell-icon Manage notifications