On February 28, 2011, Annie Girardot passed away in Paris. 'La Girardot' has left its mark on French minds with her banter, her charisma, her beauty and her masterful interpretations, but her best role will undoubtedly remain the one she has played all her life: a touching woman at will. Back in pictures on the occasion of the birthday of the actress, who would have been 91 years old on October 25.

She emerged in 1960 in Rocco and his brothers and his career exploded. In a short time, Annie Girardot has become the French movie star , whom she loved with all her heart, but who too often forsook her. passionate woman , she lived dangerous loves, but always intense. The actress passed away in 2011 from Alzheimer's disease, which she fought until the last act. She would have celebrated her 91st birthday on October 25.

Childhood and first steps in comedy

Born in Paris on October 25, 1931, Annie Girardot was orphaned at the age of two by a father who never recognized her. Very attached to her mother, she began nursing studies to follow in her footsteps before enrolling in a conservatory in 1949. She graduated in 1954 from the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art and then engages in the Comédie-Française .

Two years later, she pointed out her talent to Jean Cocteau during a performance of the play The Typewriter . Faced with his thirst for independence and his desire for cinema, Annie Girardot resigns from the Comédie-Française to take flight.

Annie Girardot : mariage, divorce, enfant

She then made a triumph on the boards with Jean Marais in Two on the swing , staged by a certain Luchino Visconti. The director offers him the role of his life in Rocco and his brothers in 1960, filming on which she met her great love Renato Salvatori. The couple married in January 1962 and saw the birth, six months later, of son unique enfant : Giulia . Annie Girardot's life between Rome and Paris allows her to shoot with Italian directors like Marco Ferreri for Bearded Woman's Husband , in which she plays a woman-ape. The feature film caused a scandal at Cannes.

The actress knows then a professional and personal slump since she separates from her husband, who is too violent. In 1967, Claude Lelouch , offers him a role in Live for living . Thanks to this romantic comedy, she reaps success and love: the filmmaker and his actress live a beautiful story for two years. She then joined the popular circle of Michel Audiard , which will cast her in two comedies: She doesn't drink, she doesn't smoke, she doesn't flirt, but... she talks! and its sequel She talks more… she shoots . More popular, she turns in The Old Girl by Jean-Pierre Blanc with Philippe Noiret. A real movie couple who will also share the poster of the tangerine , Tender Chicken and On a volé la cuisse de Jupiter .

His descent into hell

Annie Girardot falls in love with Bernard Fresson while filming Candlemas Fires : a destructive relationship that will end, unfortunately, for the same reasons as his marriage. In 1977, she obtained the César, her first, for Best Actress For the movie Doctor Francoise Gailland by Jean-Louis Bertuccelli. The actress, tired of the roles offered to her, turns to music after meeting Bob Decout, a director and lyricist. Together, they put on a musical show that ends in failure and pushes Annie Girardot to mortgage her Parisian building. A real descent into hell begins . The cinema forgets it.

Emotion at the Caesars

However, she continues to occupy the sets for TV movies, which are very successful. At the 21 ^and Cesar ceremony in 1996, she delivers a poignant speech following her award for Best Supporting Actress for Wretched by Claude Lelouch: ' I don't know if French cinema missed me, but French cinema missed me madly... madly... painfully. And your testimony, your love, makes me think that maybe, I mean maybe, I'm not quite dead yet. ' Michael Haneke then offers him a role in the pianist, for which she will receive a Caesar, and in Cache in 2005 alongside Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche.

The disease that took her

In Paris Match in 2006, her daughter Giulia Salvatori reveals that Annie Girardot has been fighting for ten years against Alzheimer's disease . Not dejected, the actress continues the filming and the theater with the help of a headset in case of forgetfulness. So she lives her passion for cinema to the very end, on February 28, 2011, to definitively lower its curtain.

Source journaldesfemmes.fr