Anna Karina

Hanne Karin Blarke Bayer during the German occupation of the Second World War. Her mother was a dress shop owner and her father was a ship captain who left the family a year after she was born. As a child, her mother belittled her appearance, and told her that her eyes and forehead were too big. She dreamt of becoming an actor from a young age and wanted to attend drama school but at the time the age requirement for Danish drama schools was 21. As a student, she rarely attended school and when she achieved good grades in her certificate exams, her school refused to believe she had done so without cheating. The injustice made her leave school at the age of 14. == Career ==

Beginnings and modeling , the café where Anna Karina was discovered|left After leaving school, she went on to find work as a lift operator in a department store and as an assistant to an illustrator. In the summer of 1958, aged 17, Karina arrived in Paris. and meeting Pierre Cardin and Coco Chanel. Karina has said that when she met Chanel on the set of the Elle photoshoot, Chanel told her: "I believe you want to be an actress… You need to learn French. What's your name little girl?" "Hanne Karin Bayer." Karina replied. And Chanel said: "No: Anna Karina – call yourself that." She also appeared in commercials for products such as Coca-Cola, Pepsodent, and Palmolive. He was casting his debut feature film Breathless (À bout de souffle, 1960), and offered her a small part in it, but she refused when he mentioned that there would be a nude scene. In the end, the character Godard reserved for Karina did not appear in the film. Godard offered her a role in The Little Soldier ('''', not released until 1963) which concerns contentious French actions during the Algerian War. She played a pro-Algerian activist. Karina, then still under 21, had to persuade her estranged mother to sign the contract for her. The film was immediately controversial, outlawed from French theaters for its content referencing the Algerian War. After the filming of The Little Soldier, Godard wanted Karina to give up acting, but when Michel Deville offered her the leading role in his next movie, Tonight or Never (Ce soir ou jamais), she accepted immediately, and despite his displeasure Godard drove her to the studio each morning; it was after seeing the rushes of Deville's movie, in which she played an ambitious actress and had to learn her lines before shooting, that he decided to cast her in his own next movie, A Woman Is a Woman (Une femme est une femme, 1961). As Angela in A Woman Is a Woman, Karina's role was as an unattached striptease dancer who nevertheless wishes to have a child and daydreams about appearing in MGM musicals. Her school-girl costume emulated Leslie Caron in Gigi (1958), worn even while performing her act. Karina herself did not object to being described as Godard's muse: "Maybe it's too much, it sounds so pompous. But of course I'm always very touched to hear people say that. Because Jean-Luc gave me a gift to play all of those parts." She later wrote and acted in Last Song (1987) and appeared in Up, Down, Fragile (Haut bas fragile, 1995), directed by Jacques Rivette, and sang in The Truth About Charlie (2002), a remake of the film Charade (1963). Karina wrote, directed and starred in Victoria (2008), a musical road movie filmed in Montreal and Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, Quebec. The lead character, played by Karina, has amnesia. Music and writing Karina maintained a singing career. At the end of the 1960s, she scored a major hit with "Sous le soleil exactement" and "Roller Girl" by Serge Gainsbourg. Both songs are from the TV musical comedy Anna (1967), by the film director Pierre Koralnik, in which she sings seven songs alongside Gainsbourg and Jean-Claude Brialy. Karina recorded the album '' with Philippe Katerine, followed by a concert tour. In 2005, she released Chansons de films'', a collection of songs sung in movies. Karina wrote four novels: '' (1973), Golden City (1983), (1988), and Jusqu'au bout du hasard'' (1998). == Personal life ==

While working together on '''', as the crew were having a dinner party in Lausanne, Godard wrote a note and gave it to Karina, saying: "I love you, come and meet me at midnight in a café called Café de la Prez." At the time Karina was in a relationship but she had already fallen in love with Godard so she ended her relationship with her then-boyfriend and went to meet Godard. They began a relationship and married in 1961. Despite the critical success, their relationship behind the scenes was described as tumultuous; they fought on film sets, she fell ill several times, attempted suicide and was subsequently hospitalized in a mental health institution. Godard was often absent without explanation. He was also very jealous, questioned Karina's acting ability and told her: "How are you going to say these lines? They're so terrible! It's a comedy, you are never going to be able to do that." One Godard film from this period which does not feature Karina, Contempt (1963) starring Brigitte Bardot wearing a black wig which resembles Karina's dark hair, is said to be based on their difficult relationship.After divorcing Godard, Karina remarried three times; she was married to French actors Pierre Fabre from 1968 to 1974 and Daniel Duval from 1978 to 1981, and to American film director Dennis Berry from 1982 until her death. Karina died at the age of 79 on Saturday, 14 December 2019, at a hospital in Paris. According to her agent, Laurent Balandras, the cause of death was cancer. == Legacy ==

Karina is regularly considered an icon of 1960s cinema, The Guardian described her as an "effervescent free spirit of the French new wave." The New York Times described her style as looking like a schoolgirl in her acting roles, regardless of whether she was playing a streetwalker or a terrorist. Her signature look was her dark hair, wispy bangs, heavy eyeliner and school uniform of primary-coloured sailor-uniform tops, knee socks, plaid headwear such as berets and boaters. Refinery29 wrote that "her 60s French girl style – think sailor dresses, tartan, long socks, and hats – and mesmerizing doe-eyed beauty mean she continues to be referenced today by the super-stylish." == Filmography ==