- published: 31 Jan 2014
- views: 20443
Emmanuelle is the lead character in a series of French softcore erotic movies based on a character created by Emmanuelle Arsan in the novel Emmanuelle (1959). Only films and episodes produced by the ASP ("Alain Siritzky Productions") film company are official and based on Arsan's character.
The name Emmanuelle (and its various spelling combinations) has gone on to become metonymic with erotic film.
Emmanuelle appeared as the nom de plume of Marayat Rollet-Andriane, a French-Thai actress born in the 1930s in Bangkok. Her 1957 book The Joys of a Woman detailed the sexual exploits of Emmanuelle, the "bored housewife" of a French diplomat. Rollet-Andriane's book caused a sensation in France and was banned.
Rollet-Andriane appears in the 1976 film Laure, which she wrote and which was directed by her husband, Louis-Jacques Rollet-Andriane, who asked to have his name removed from the credits, so direction is either credited to anonymous or Emmanuelle Arsan.
The producer of Laure, Ovidio Assonitis, claimed that all books published under the nom-de-plume Emmanuelle Arsan were written by her husband Louis-Jacques Rollet-Andriane rather than by Marayat .
Emmanuelle Riva (born 24 February 1927 in Cheniménil) is a French actress.
Riva started her acting career on the Paris stage after having worked as a seamstress. Her best known role was as the (unnamed) female lead in Hiroshima mon amour (1959).
She has also appeared in Adua e le compagne, Léon Morin, prêtre, Thérèse Desqueyroux (for which she won the Volpi Cup for best actress at the Venice Film Festival), Thomas l'imposteur, The Eyes, the Mouth, Three Colours: Blue as the mother of Juliette Binoche's character, and Venus Beauty Institute. She has continued to act in films in the 21st century.
While filming Hiroshima mon amour, Riva photographed Hiroshima; a half-century later these photographs were exhibited at the Nikon Salon and were issued in book form in France and Japan.
Riva is also a published poet.
Jessica Chastain is an American theater, film, and television actress. She is known for her roles in the films The Help, The Debt, Take Shelter, Coriolanus, and The Tree of Life. She broke out in 2011 with seven films premiering. She won over 35 critics awards and was widely named as breakout star. For her role in the film The Help she received Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, BAFTA and Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress. In 2012, she was named to the list of Time 100 most influential people of the world.
Chastain was born and raised in Northern California. She is one of five children. Her mother is a vegan chef, and her father (one source says stepfather) is a firefighter. Chastain is also vegan herself. She grew up as Jessica Howard, and later took her mother's maiden name as her stage name. Chastain had a "blue collar" upbringing around San Francisco.
She graduated from El Camino High School in Sacramento in 1995 and attended Sacramento City College, where she was a member of the debate team (1996–1997). In 1998, she appeared as Juliet in a production of Romeo and Juliet staged by TheatreWorks, a professional theater company in the San Francisco Bay Area.