Name	Henri-Georges Clouzot
Alt	A black and white photo of Henri-Georges Clouzot taken from a side. Clouzot is depicted sitting downsmoking a pipe and wearing a matching white and hat and suit.
Birth date	August 18, 1907
Death place	Paris, France
Occupation	Film directorscreenwriterfilm producer
Years active	1931–1968
Spouse	Inès de Gonzalez (1963–1977)

Henri-Georges Clouzot (; August 18, 1907 – January 12, 1977) was a French film director, screenwriter and producer. He is best remembered for his work in the thriller film genre, having directed The Wages of Fear and Les Diaboliques, which are critically recognized to be among the greatest films from the 1950s. Clouzot also directed documentary films, including The Mystery of Picasso, which was declared a national treasure by the government of France.

Clouzot was an early fan of the cinema and, desiring a career as a writer, moved to Paris. He was later hired by producer Adolphe Osso to work in Berlin, writing French-language versions of German films. After being fired from German studios due to his friendship with Jewish producers, Clouzot returned to France, where he spent years bedridden after contracting tuberculosis. Upon recovering, Clouzot found work in Nazi occupied France as a screenwriter for the German-owned company Continental Films. At Continental, Clouzot wrote and directed films that were very popular in France. His second film Le Corbeau drew controversy over its harsh look at provincial France and Clouzot was fired from Continental before its release. As a result of his association with Continental, Clouzot was barred by the French government from filmmaking until 1947.

After the ban was lifted, Clouzot reestablished his reputation and popularity in France during the late 1940s with successful films including Quai des Orfèvres. After the release of his comedy film Miquette et sa mère, Clouzot married Véra Gibson-Amado, who would star in his next three feature films. In the early and mid-1950s, Clouzot drew acclaim from international critics and audiences for The Wages of Fear and Diabolique. Both films would serve as source material for remakes decades later. After the release of La Vérité, Clouzot's wife Véra died of a heart attack and Clouzot's career suffered due to depression, illness and new critical views of films from the French New Wave. Clouzot's career became less active in later years, limited to a few television documentaries and two feature films in the 1960s. Clouzot wrote several unused scripts in the 1970s and died in Paris in 1977.

Biography

Early years

Henri-Georges Clouzot was born in Niort, France, to mother Suzanne Clouzot and father Georges Clouzout, a book store owner. He was the first of three children in a middle class family. Clouzot showed talent by writing plays and playing piano recitals. In 1922, Clouzot's father's bookstore went bankrupt and his family moved to Brest, France, where his father became an auctioneer. In Brest, Henri-Georges Clouzot went to Naval School, but was unable to become a Naval Cadet due to his myopia. At the age of 18, Clouzot left for Paris to study political science. While living in Paris, he became friends with several magazine editors.

Career

Screenwriting career (1931–1942)

Throughout the 1930s, Clouzot worked by writing and translating scripts, dialogue and occasionally lyrics for over twenty films. While living in Germany, Clouzot saw the films of F. W. Murnau and Fritz Lang and was deeply influenced by their expressionist style. In 1931, he made his first short film, La Terreur des Batignolles, from a script by Jacques de Baroncelli. The film is a 15-minute comedy with three actors. French cinema had changed because many of the producers he had known had fled France to escape Nazism. After the German occupation of France during World War II, the German-operated film production company Continental films was established in France in October 1940. Alfred Grevin, the director of Continental, knew Clouzot from Berlin and offered him work to adapt stories of writer Stanislas-André Steeman. Clouzot began work on his second Steeman adaptation, which he would also direct, titled The Murderer Lives at Number 21. It starred Fresnay and Delair playing the same roles they had performed in Le Dernier de six. Released in 1942, the film was popular with audiences and critics. Clouzot's next film was Le Corbeau based on a true story about a woman who sent poison pen letters in France in 1922. Grevin was against Clouzot making this film, stating that topic was "dangerous". Le Corbeau was released in 1943 and generated controversy from the right-wing Vichy regime, the left-wing Resistance press and the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church considered the film "painful and hard, constantly morbid in its complexity". The Vichy press dubbed it the antithesis of the Révolution nationale and demanded it be banned due to its immoral values. The anti-Nazi resistance press considered it Nazi propaganda because of its negative portrayal of the French populace. Two days before the release of Le Corbeau, Continental films fired Clouzot. For Quai des Orfèvres, Clouzot asked the author Stanislas-André Steeman for a copy of his novel, Légitime défense, to adapt into a film. Clouzot started writing the script before the novel arrived for him to read. Quai des Orfèvres was released in 1947 and was the fourth most popular film in France, drawing 5.5 million spectators in that year. Le Retour de Jean was influenced by the short period when Clouzot lived in Germany in the early 1930s and stars Louis Jouvet as a survivor of a concentration camp who finds a wounded Nazi war criminal whom he interrogates and tortures.]] Upon returning to France, he was offered a script written by Georges-Jean Arnaud, an expatriate living in South America who had written about his own experiences there. Clouzot found it easy to imagine the setting of the script and was very anxious to film Arnaud's story. He started writing the film, The Wages of Fear, with his brother, Jean Clouzot, who would collaborate with him on all his subsequent films under the name of Jérôme Geronimi. In order to gain as much independence as possible, Clouzot created his own production company called Véra Films, which he named after his wife. The Wages of Fear was the second most popular film in France in 1953 and was seen by nearly 7 million spectators. It won awards for Best Film and Best Actor (for Charles Vanel) at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1954, Diabolique won the Louis Delluc Prize and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for best foreign film. In this early and mid-1950s period, with the films The Wages of Fear and Diabolique, Clouzot came to be fully embraced by international critics and audiences. Both films were screened and reviewed in America as well as in France, and were rated among the best thrillers of the decade. In 1984, the film was declared a national treasure by the government of France. Les Espions was not released in the United States and was a financial failure in France. Bardot plays Dominique Marceau, who is on trial for the murder of her former boyfriend Gilbert Tellier. As her trial progresses, the relationship between Dominique and Gilbert becomes more finely shaped. Bardot later described La Vérité as her favorite of all the films she worked on. and expressed their displeasure publicly through articles and reviews in the film criticism publication, Cahiers du cinéma. Clouzot took their criticism to heart, saying in the magazine Lui that he didn't find his films Diabolique and Miquette et Sa Mère important or interesting anymore. Lead actor Serge Reggiani fell ill one week after shooting began and had to be replaced. After production finished on the documentaries, Clouzot was able to finance his final picture. After finishing La Prisonnière, Clouzot's health grew worse. Clouzot had Delair star in two of his films, The Murderer Lives at Number 21 and Quai des Orfèvres. Delair eventually left Clouzot after working with him on Quai des Orfèvres. Véra also contributed to the script of La Vérité. Véra Clouzot died of a heart attack shortly after the filming of La Vérité. Clouzot fell into a depression over her death. When basing screenplays on written work, Clouzot often changed the stories dramatically, using only key points of the original story. The author Stanislas-André Steeman, whom Clouzot worked with twice, said Clouzot would only "build something after having contemptuously demolished any resemblance to the original, purely for the ambition of effect". When writing for his own features, Clouzot created characters that were usually corrupt and spineless, with the capacity for both good and evil within them. Pierre Fresnay recalled that Clouzot "worked relentlessly, which made for a juicy spectacle...That's to say nothing for his taste of violence, which he never tried with me". Film historian Philipe Pilard wrote, "There is no doubt that if Clouzot had worked for Hollywood and applied the formulas of U.S. studios, today he would be lauded by the very critics who choose to ignore him". Clouzot respected Hitchcock's work, stating, "I admire him very much and am flattered when anyone compares a film of mine to his".

Several of Clouzot's films have been remade since their original releases. Director Otto Preminger adapted Le Corbeau into his 1951 film, The 13th Letter. In 1977, the year of Clouzot's death, William Friedkin directed a remake of The Wages of Fear called Sorcerer. In 1996, an American remake of Les Diaboliques was released under the title Diabolique, starring Sharon Stone.

Filmography

The Murderer Lives at Number 21 (1942)

Le Corbeau (1943)

Quai des Orfèvres (1947)

Manon (1949)

Retour à la Vie (1949)

Miquette et Sa Mère (1950)

The Wages of Fear (1953)

Diabolique (1954)

The Mystery of Picasso (1956)

Les Espions (1957)

La Vérité (1960)

La Prisonnière (1968)

Notes

References

External links

Henri-Georges Clouzot at Rotten Tomatoes

Category:1907 births Category:1977 deaths Category:Burials at Montmartre Cemetery, Paris Category:Edgar Award winners Category:French film directors Category:French screenwriters Category:People from Niort

Name	Romy Schneider
Caption	Romy Schneider, June 1971
Birth name
Birth date	September 23, 1938
Birth place	Vienna, Austria
Death date	May 29, 1982
Death place	Paris, France
Occupation	actress
Years active	1953–1982
Spouse	Harry Meyen (1966–1975)Daniel Biasini (1975–1981)
Partner	Alain Delon (1959–1963)}}

Romy Schneider (23 September 193829 May 1982) was a German film actress who was born in Austria and also held French citizenship.

Early life

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-born German 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. Schneider made her film debut in Wenn der weisse Flieder wieder blüht (1953), at the age of 15. Her career was also overseen by her stepfather, Hans Herbert Blatzheim, a noted restaurateur who Schneider indicated had an unhealthy interest in her.

Career

Romy Schneider's first movie 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 Vicky and in Britain as Victoria in Dover). Schneider's breakthrough came with her portrayal of Elisabeth, Empress Consort 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.

Schneider soon starred in Christine (1958), a remake of Max Ophüls's 1933 film Liebelei (itself based upon a play by Arthur Schnitzler and starring her mother Magda Schneider). It was during the filming of Christine that Schneider fell in love with French actor Alain Delon, who co-starred in the movie. She left Germany to join him in Paris and they announced their engagement in 1959.

Schneider decided to live and to work in France, slowly gaining the interest of film directors such as Orson Welles for The Trial (1962), based upon Franz Kafka's The Trial and was introduced by Delon to Luchino Visconti.

Under Visconti's direction, she gave performances in the Théâtre Moderne as Annabella (and Delon as Giovanni) in John Ford's stage play 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (1961) and in the film Boccaccio '70 (segment: "The Job"). In 1962 Schneider played Anna in Sacha Pitoëff's production of Chekhov's play The Seagull, also at the Théâtre Moderne. A brief stint in Hollywood included appearances in Good Neighbor Sam, a 1964 comedy with Jack Lemmon, and 1965 What's New Pussycat? co-starring Peter O'Toole, Peter Sellers and Woody Allen who also wrote the screenplay.

Schneider and Delon decided to split up in 1963 although they remained close lifelong friends and continued to work together in such films as La Piscine (The Swimming Pool) (1968) and The Assassination of Trotsky (1972).

Romy Schneider continued to work in France during the 1970s, appearing in films as Les choses de la vie (1970), Max et les ferrailleurs (1971), César et Rosalie (1972), and Le vieux fusil (1975). The harsh L'important c'est d'aimer (1974) garnered her first César Award (France's equivalent of the Oscar).

On 30 October 1974, Romy Schneider created one of the most memorable moments on German television. She was the second guest on Dietmar Schönherr's talk show Je später der Abend (The later the evening) when she, after a rather terse interview, remarked passionately to the last guest, bank robber and author Burkhard Driest: "Sie gefallen mir. Sie gefallen mir sehr." (I like you. I like you a lot.)

Ludwig, Visconti's 1972 film about the life of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, featured her as a much more complex, mature, even bitter Elisabeth of Austria. "Sissi sticks to me just like oatmeal", Schneider once said.

She also acted in Le Trio infernal (1974) with Michel Piccoli, and in Garde à vue (1981) with Michel Serrault and Lino Ventura. An unpleasant incident occurred during this period with leading German film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder who wanted her to play the lead in his 1979 film The Marriage of Maria Braun. Negotiations broke down when he called Schneider a "dumb cow" and Schneider responded by declaring she would never work with such a beast as Fassbinder.

In 1980 she starred in Bertrand Tavernier's Death Watch (La mort en direct), based on David G. Compton's novel, playing a dying woman whose last days are watched on national television via a camera implanted in the brain of a journalist (Harvey Keitel). Her last film was La Passante du Sans-Souci (The Passerby), (1982).

Personal life

In July 1966 Schneider married Harry Meyen (1924–1979), a German director and actor who committed suicide in Hamburg, Germany in 1979. The couple had a son, David Christopher, born on December 3, 1966. David died at the age of 14 on 5 July 1981. He had attempted to climb the spiked fence at his stepfather's parents' home when he punctured his femoral artery.

In 1975, Schneider married Daniel Biasini, her private secretary; they separated in 1981. Their daughter Sarah Biasini (born 21 July 1977) is now an actress.

Death

Schneider began drinking alcohol in excess after the death of her son David. When she was found dead in her apartment in Paris on 29 May 1982, it was suggested that she had committed suicide by taking a lethal cocktail of alcohol and sleeping pills. After another post-mortem examination was carried out, authorities declared that she had died from cardiac arrest. Her tombstone at Boissy-sans-Avoir in the Canton of Montfort-l'Amaury bears the name Rosemarie Albach. Shortly afterwards, Alain Delon arranged for David to be buried in the same grave.

Enduring popularity

The French journalist Eugène Moineau initiated in 1984 the Prix Romy Schneider; this prize—the most prestigious award for promising actresses in the French film industry—is awarded by a jury each year in Paris in conjunction with the Prix Patrick Dewaere (formerly the Prix Jean Gabin). In 1990, the Austrian newspaper Kurier created the Romy TV Award in honour of Romy Schneider. In 2003, she was voted 78th on the list of the greatest Germans in the German TV programme Unsere Besten (the German version of 100 Greatest Britons)—the second highest ranked actress (Marlene Dietrich was 50th) on that list. Until 2002, the Austrian Federal Railways InterCity service IC 535 from Wien Südbahnhof to Graz was named "Romy Schneider".

A movie about Romy Schneider's life, titled Eine Frau wie Romy/Une femme comme Romy (A Woman Like Romy) was planned by Warner Bros. for 2009; Schneider's role was going to be played by Yvonne Catterfeld. The project was cancelled in July 2009. A musical about Schneider, Romy – Die Welt aus Gold (Romy – The Golden World) was premiered in 2009 at the Theater Heilbronn. In November 2009 the ARD broadcast the feature film Romy with Jessica Schwarz in the title role.

Filmography

{|class="wikitable" !Title||Year||Role||Director |- |Wenn der weiße Flieder wieder blüht||1953||Evchen Förster||Hans Deppe |- |Mädchenjahre einer Königin||1954||Princess Victoria / Queen Victoria||Ernst Marischka |- |Feuerwerk||1954||Anna Oberholzer||Paul Burkhard, Erik Charell, and Kurt Hoffmann |- |Der letzte Mann||1955||Niddy Hoevelmann||Harald Braun |- |Die Deutschmeister||1955||Stanzi Hübner||Ernst Marischka |- |Sissi||1955||Sissi||Ernst Marischka |- |Kitty und die große Welt||1956||Kitty Dupont||Alfred Weidenmann |- |Sissi – Die junge Kaiserin||1956||Sissi||Ernst Marischka |- |Sissi – Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin||1957||Sissi||Ernst Marischka |- |Robinson soll nicht sterben||1957||Maud||Josef von Báky |- |Monpti||1957||Anne-Claire Jouvain||Helmut Käutner |- |Eva (Die Halbzarte)||1958|| Nicole||Rolf Thiele |- |Scampolo||1958||Scampolo||Alfred Weidenmann |- |Mädchen in Uniform||1958||Manuela von Meinhardis||Géza von Radványi |- |Christine||1958||Christine Weiring||Pierre Gaspard-Huit |- |Katia||1959||Katia||Robert Siodmak |- |Die schöne Lügnerin||1959||Fanny Emmetsrieder||Axel von Ambesser |- |Ein Engel auf Erden||1959||Stewardess/Angel||Géza von Radványi |- |Purple Noon (Plein soleil)||1960||Freddie's companion (uncredited)||René Clément |- |Boccaccio '70||1961||Pupe (segment Il lavoro)||Luchino Visconti |- |Le Combat dans l'île||1962||Anne||Alain Cavalier |- |The Trial||1962|||Leni||Orson Welles |- |The Victors||1962||Regine||Carl Foreman |- |The Cardinal||1963||Annemarie von Hartman||Otto Preminger |- |Good Neighbor Sam||1964||Janet Lagerlof||David Swift |- |L'Enfer||1964||Odette||Henri-Georges Clouzot |- |L'Amour à la mer||1965||The star||Guy Gilles |- |Is Paris Burning? (Paris brûle-t-il ?)||1965||scene cut||René Clément |- |What's New Pussycat?||1965||Carole Werner||Clive Donner |- |||1965||Claire||Jules Dassin |- |La Voleuse||1965||Julia Kreuz||Jean Chapot |- |Triple Cross||1966||Countess||Terence Young |- |Otley||1968||Imogen||Dick Clement |- |The Swimming Pool||1969||Marianne||Jacques Deray |- |La califfa ||1970||Irene Corsini||Alberto Bevilacqua |- |Les choses de la vie||1970||Hélène||Claude Sautet |- |My Lover My Son||1970||Francesca Anderson||John Newland |- |Qui ?||1970||Marina||Léonard Keigel |- |Bloomfield||1971||Nira||Richard Harris |- |The Assassination of Trotsky||1971||Gita Samuels||Joseph Losey |- |Max et les Ferrailleurs||1971||Lily||Claude Sautet |- |César et Rosalie||1972||Rosalie||Claude Sautet |- |Ludwig||1972||Elisabeth of Austria||Luchino Visconti |- |Le Train||1973||Anna Kupfer||Pierre Granier-Deferre |- |Un amour de pluie||1974||Elizabeth||Jean-Claude Brialy |- |Le Trio infernal||1974||Philomena Schmidt||Francis Girod |- |L'important c'est d'aimer||1974||Nadine Chevalier||Andrzej Żuławski |- |Le Mouton enragé||1974||Roberte Groult||Michel Deville |- |Le Vieux Fusil||1975||Clara Dandieu||Robert Enrico |- |Les innocents aux mains sales||1975||Julie Wormser||Claude Chabrol |- |Mado||1976||Hélène||Claude Sautet |- |Une femme à sa fenêtre||1976||Margot Santorini||Pierre Granier-Deferre |- |''Gruppenbild mit Dame||1977||Leni Gruyten||Aleksandar Petrović |- |A Simple Story||1978||Marie||Claude Sautet |- |Bloodline||1979||Hélène Martin||Terence Young |- |Clair de femme||1979||Lydia||Costa-Gavras |- |Death Watch||1979||Katherine Mortenhoe||Bertrand Tavernier |- |La Banquière||1980||Emma Eckhert||Francis Girod |- |Fantasma d'amore||1981||Anna Brigatti Zighi||Dino Risi |- |Garde à vue||1981||Chantal Martinaud||Claude Miller |- |La Passante du Sans-Souci||1982||Elsa Wiener/Lina Baumstein||Jacques Rouffio |}

Awards

Bambi: 1957 nominated for Sissi

BRAVO Otto (German magazine (BRAVO) audience voted prize)

*1957: Bronze

*1958: Gold

*1959: Silver

*1971: Silver

*1972: Bronze

*1977: Bronze

Étoile de Cristal: 1963 for The Trial

Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama: 1963 nominated for The Cardinal

César Award for Best Actress

*1975: won for L'important c'est d'aimer

*1976: nominated for ''Une femme à sa fenêtre

*1978: won for Une histoire simple

*1979: nominated for ''Clair de femme

*1982: nominated for La Passante du Sans-Souci

Deutscher Filmpreis Best Actress: 1977 for Group Portrait with Lady

Premio David di Donatello: 1979 Lifetime Achievement

Awards named after Romy Schneider

Prix Romy Schneider, French film award established in 1984

Romy, Austrian award established in 1990

References

Literature

Hans-Jürgen Tast: Romy Schneider — Ein Leben auf Titelseiten Schellerten 2008, ISBN 978-3-88842-036-8.

Michael Töteberg: Romy Schneider, Rowohlt 2009, ISBN 978-3-499-50669-7

External links

Category:1938 births Category:1982 deaths Category:Austrian film actors Category:César Award winners Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction Category:French film actors Category:German film actors Category:People from Vienna Category:Best Actress German Film Award winners

Serge Reggiani (May 2, 1922 – July 23, 2004) was an Italian-born French singer and actor. He was born in Reggio Emilia, Italy and moved to France with his parents at the age of eight. For many years, he struggled with alcoholism, caused in part by the 1980 suicide of his son Stephan.

After acting school (Conservatoire des arts cinématographiques) he was discovered by Jean Cocteau and appeared in a wartime production of Les Parents terribles ("The Terrible Parents"). During World War II, he left Paris to join the French resistance.

His first feature film came in 1946 with his role in Les portes de la nuit ("The Doors of the Night"). He later went on to perform in 80 films including Casque d'or, Les Misérables (1958),Tutti a casa, Le Doulos, Il Gattopardo, La terrazza, The Pianist (1998).

In spite of never quite reaching the peak with his acting career, he did triumph in the theatre in 1959 with his performance in Jean-Paul Sartre’s play Les Séquestrés d'Altona. In the meantime, though, in 1965 he began a second career, that of a singer (at the age of 43), with the help of Simone Signoret and her husband Yves Montand and later with great assistance of the French diva Barbara. Reggiani became one of the most acclaimed performers of French "Chanson" ("song") and although he was in his 40s, his bad-boy rugged image made him popular with both young and older listeners.

His best known songs include Les loups sont entrés dans Paris ("The Wolves Have Entered Paris") and Sarah (La femme qui est dans mon lit) ("The Woman Who Is In My Bed"), the latter written by Georges Moustaki. However, one of his regular songwriters throughout his career was Boris Vian (Le Déserteur, Arthur où t'as mis le corps, La Java des bombes atomiques). His new young fans identified with his left-wing ideals and antimilitarism, most notably during the 1968 student revolts in France. With age he became more and more acclaimed as one of the best interpreters of the French chanson also bringing the poetry of Rimbaud, Apollinaire and Prévert closer to his audience. In 1995, he made a comeback to the singing stage, giving a few concerts despite his deteriorated health and personal distress, the last one being held as late as in the year of his death, in spring of 2004.

In later life he became a painter and gave a number of exhibitions of his artwork.

Serge Reggiani died in Paris of a heart attack at the age of 82, one day after the death of another well known French singer Sacha Distel. He is interred in Montparnasse Cemetery.

Selected filmography

Le voyageur de la Toussaint (1943)

''Casque d'or (1952)

The Secret People (1952)

Act of Love, aka Un acte d'amour (1953)

Paris Blues (1961)

Le Doulos (1962)

External links

Biography

Category:French stage actors Category:French film actors Category:French male singers Category:French painters Category:French people of Italian descent Category:Italian immigrants to France Category:Italian film actors Category:1922 births Category:2004 deaths Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction Category:People from Reggio Emilia Category:Burials at Montparnasse Cemetery