Maurice Ronet (13 April 1927 – 14 March 1983) was a French film actor, director and writer.

Maurice Ronet was born Maurice Julien Marie Robinet in Nice, Alpes Maritimes, the only child of professional stage actors Émile Robinet and Gilberte Dubreuil. He made his stage debut in 1941, alongside his parents, in Sacha Guitry's Le Deux couverts, in Lausanne. He entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1944, where Jean-Louis Barrault was one his mentors. When he made his film debut at twenty-two in Jacques Becker's Rendez-vous de juillet (1949), in a role that was written specifically for him by Becker, he had little interest in pursuing an acting career. After completing the film, he married Maria Pacôme (a French stage actress and playwright) and they departed to Moustiers-Sainte-Marie in Provence, where he tried his hand at ceramics. After completing his military service, he returned to Paris in the early 1950's where he took courses in philosophy and physics, and pursued his passion for literature, music (piano and organ), film and painting. His artwork, part of the peinture non figurative movement, was exhibited along with friends Jean Dubuffet and Georges Mathieu. He also acted occasionally in small roles in the films of French directors like Yves Ciampi and René Wheeler, with ambitions of becoming a filmmaker himself. Gradually, however, he came to discover a freedom in acting, and a creative satisfaction that provided a synthesis of all his interests.

Louis Malle (30 October 1932 – 23 November 1995) was an award-winning French film director, screenwriter, and producer. His film, Le Monde du silence, won the Palme d'Or and Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1956. He was also nominated multiple times for Academy Awards later in his career.

Malle worked in both French cinema and Hollywood, and he produced both French and English language films. His most famous films include Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (1958), Atlantic City (1981), and Au revoir, les enfants (1987).

Malle was born into a wealthy industrialist family in Thumeries, Nord, France. He initially studied political science at the Sciences-Po before turning to film studies at IDHEC instead.

He worked as the co-director and cameraman to Jacques Cousteau on the Oscar and Palme d'Or-winning (at the 1956 Academy Awards and Cannes Film Festival respectively) documentary The Silent World (1956) and assisted Robert Bresson on A Man Escaped (French title: Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut, 1956) before making his first feature, Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (released in the U.K. as Lift to the Scaffold and in the U.S. originally as Frantic, later as Elevator to the Gallows) in 1957. A taut thriller featuring an original score by Miles Davis, the film made an international film star of Jeanne Moreau, at the time a leading stage actress of the state Comédie-Française. Malle was 24 years old.

Jacques Deray (February 19, 1929 in Lyon – August 9, 2003 Boulogne-Billancourt) was a French film director and screenwriter. Deray is prominently known for directing many crime and thriller films.

Born Jacques Desrayaud in Lyon, France in 1929 to a family of Lyons industrialists. At the age of 12 he went to Paris to study drama under René Simon. Deray played in minor roles on the stage and in films from the age of 19. From 1952, Deray worked as assistant to a number of directors, including Luis Buñuel, Gilles Grangier, Jules Dassin, and Jean Boyer.

Deray's first film was the drama Le Gigolo released in 1960. Deray was fascinated by American film noir and began to focus on crime stories. Deray's early work includes Du rififi à Tokyo, an homage to Jules Dassin's Rififi. Deray's reputation was established with the 1969 film La Piscine which starred Romy Schneider and Alain Delon.La Piscine was not distributed widely outside France, but the follow-up gave Deray his biggest international hit with Borsalino, a film starring Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo about two small-time gangsters who murder their way to the top in bustling 1930s Marseilles.

Romy Schneider (23 September 1938 – 29 May 1982) was an Austrian-born German film actress who also held French citizenship.

Schneider was born Rosemarie Magdalena Albach in Nazi-era Vienna, six months after the Anschluss, into a family of actors that included her paternal grandmother Rosa Albach-Retty, her Austrian father Wolf Albach-Retty and her German mother Magda Schneider. After her parents' divorce in 1945, Magda took charge of Romy and her brother Wolfi, eventually supervising the young girl's career, often appearing alongside her daughter. Her career was also overseen by her stepfather, Hans Herbert Blatzheim, a noted restaurateur who Schneider indicated had an unhealthy interest in her.

Romy Schneider's first film, made when she was 15, was Wenn der weiße Flieder wieder blüht (When the White Lilacs Bloom Again) in 1953, credited as Romy Schneider-Albach. In 1954, Schneider for the first time portrayed a royal, playing a young Queen Victoria in the Austrian film Mädchenjahre einer Königin (known in the U.S. as The Story of Vickie and in Britain as Victoria in Dover). Schneider's breakthrough came with her portrayal of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, in the romantic biopic Sissi (1955) and its two sequels, Sissi – The Young Empress (1956) and Sissi – Fateful Years of an Empress (1957), all with Karlheinz Böhm, who became a close friend. Less stereotypical films during this busy period include Robinson soll nicht sterben (The Legend of Robinson Crusoe) (1957) putting her among a stellar cast and opposite a young Horst Buchholz, and Monpti (1957), directed by Helmut Käutner and again opposite Buchholz.

Sara Montiel (also Sarita Montiel or Saritísima) (born March 10, 1928) is a Spanish singer, and actress. She is still a much-loved and internationally known name in the Spanish-speaking movie and music industries.

Montiel was born in Campo de Criptana in the region of Castile–La Mancha in 1928 as María Antonia Abad (complete name María Antonia Alejandra Vicenta Elpidia Isidora Abad Fernández). After her unprecedented international hit in Juan de Orduña's El Último Cuplé in 1957, Montiel achieved the status of mega-star in Europe and Latin America. She was the first woman to distill sex openly in Spanish cinema at a time when even a low cut dress was not acceptable.

Montiel was the most commercially successful Spanish actress during the mid twentieth century in much of the world. Miss Montiel's film Varietes was banned in Beijing in 1973. Her films El Último Cuple and La Violetera netted the highest gross revenues ever recorded for films made in the Spanish speaking movie industry during the 50s and 60s. She also played the role of Antonia, the niece of Don Quixote, in the 1947 Spanish film version of Cervantes's great novel.