Jeanne Moreau

Moreau was born in Paris, the daughter of Katherine (née Buckley), a dancer who performed at the Folies Bergère (d. 1990), and Anatole-Désiré Moreau, a restaurateur (d. 1975). Moreau's father was Catholic and her mother, originally a Protestant, converted to Catholicism upon marriage. When Jeanne was a young girl, "the family moved south to Vichy, spending vacations at the paternal ancestral village of Mazirat, a town of 30 houses in a valley in the Allier. "It was wonderful there", Moreau said. "Every tombstone in the cemetery was for a Moreau." During World War II, the family was split, and Moreau lived with her mother in Paris. Moreau ultimately lost interest in school and, at age 16, after attending a performance of Jean Anouilh's Antigone, found her calling as an actress. She later studied at the Conservatoire de Paris. Her parents separated permanently while Moreau was at the conservatory and her mother, "after 24 difficult years in France, returned to England with Jeanne's sister, Michelle." == Career ==

In 1947, Moreau made her theatrical debut at the Avignon Festival. She debuted at the Comédie-Française in Ivan Turgenev's A Month in the Country Moreau went on to work with many of the best known New Wave and avant-garde directors. In 2005, she was awarded with the Stanislavsky Award at the 27th Moscow International Film Festival. Moreau was also a vocalist. She released several albums and once performed with Frank Sinatra at Carnegie Hall in 1984. She appeared in Rosa von Praunheim's film ''Fassbinder's Women'' (2000). == Personal life ==

. Throughout her life, Moreau maintained friendships with prominent writers such as Jean Cocteau, Jean Genet, Henry Miller, and Marguerite Duras (an interview with Moreau is included in Duras's book Outside: Selected Writings). She formerly was married to Jean-Louis Richard (1949–1964, separated in 1951), and then to American film director William Friedkin (1977–1979). She and Richard had a son, Jérôme. Director Tony Richardson left his wife Vanessa Redgrave for her in 1967, but they never married. She also had relationships with directors Louis Malle and François Truffaut, fashion designer Pierre Cardin, and the Greek actor/playboy Theodoros Roubanis. In 1971, Jeanne Moreau was a signatory of the Manifesto of the 343 which publicly announced that she had obtained an illegal abortion. Moreau was a close friend of Sharon Stone, who presented a 1998 American Academy of Motion Pictures life tribute to Moreau at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater, academy headquarters, in Beverly Hills. Orson Welles called Moreau "the greatest actress in the world", Moreau died on 31 July 2017 at her home in Paris at the age of 89. == Filmography ==

Actress Director • Lumière (1976) • ''L'Adolescente'' (1979) • Lillian Gish (1983, TV documentary) == Awards and nominations ==

Films Theater == References ==