Paris (AFP) – The face of the Mona Lisa and the eyes of a cat: Federico Fellini described her as a woman who drives a man crazy. German-speaking actor and director OW Fischer said of her: “Mademoiselle Aimée is a miracle – a talented and radiantly beautiful artist.”
Anouk Emmy, who has portrayed and acted with the greats of cinema, is one of the French actresses who has written more than 50 years of cinematic history.
“As long as the camera can take me, I will love the camera,” Amy, who turns 90 on Wednesday (April 27), said years ago. The relationship between her and the cinema has continued ever since. In 2019, she was seen in Claude Lelouch’s The Most Beautiful Years of Life. With the film, the French director completed a trilogy that began in 1966 and continued in 1985 with “A Man and a Woman – Twenty Years Later”.
“Man and Woman” became not only one of his most successful films for Lelouch. Aimée received a Golden Globe and a British Academy Film Award for her performance as Anne, an actress who falls in love with a widowed racing driver. In “The Most Beautiful Years of Life,” Lelouch brings the legendary couple who have since embodied the Emmys with 91-year-old Jean-Louis Trintignant on camera — more than 50 years later.
international career
Amy stood in front of the camera in front of the greats of the world of cinema and acted alongside international stars: Federico Fellini brought her to the set of “La Dolce Vita” and “Eight and a Half”, Jack Demme for “Lola, the girl from the port”, and Robert Altman filmed Ready to-Porter with her. Her film partners were no less famous: Marcello Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Michel Piccoli, Dirk Bogard and, of course, Jean-Louis Trintignant. Parisian fashion designer Emmanuel Ungaro also chose her as his muse in the 80s. He christened his perfume with Aimée in mind: “Diva”.
In her films, she often played the role of a mysterious and withdrawn woman with the face of the Mona Lisa and the look of longing. “It’s charming. Like soft music we can’t escape,” said German actress August Diehl, who starred alongside her in 2003 Birkenau and Rosenfeld.
new name
There are names that inadvertently have a special meaning throughout life. One of them is undoubtedly the one that the actress wears. Baptized Nicole Dreyfus, French poet Jacques Prevert came to her Emmy title in 1947 during rehearsals for Marcel Carney’s “La Fleur de l’age” (approx: in the prime of her life). She got her first name Anouk through The House Under the Sea, where she plays the heroine of the same name.
Born on April 27, 1932 in Paris to an acting couple, the actress is one of France’s favorite actresses. At the age of fourteen she was already in front of the camera. She made her film debut in 1947 with Henri Calef’s The House Under the Sea. After that everything happened very quickly: two years later she was seen in the movie “The Lovers of Verona”. In the same year, she took a leading role in the English production “The Golden Salamander” – and was celebrated as a star in Great Britain. In the mid-1950s, it also made a name for itself in Germany.
The newspapers at the time dubbed her “Charm from Paris”. In 2019, the media at the Cannes Film Festival celebrated the “mysterious charm” of the Emmys after the presentation of “The Most Beautiful Years of a Life”.