French actress Françoise Arnoul, a young first in vogue in the 1950s, died on July 20 at the age of 90. She died in a Paris hospital following a long illness, her family said in a statement. "
We thought it was more important to live your life, to love, and to be with your loved one, to do the things we wanted rather than to make films
", confided Françoise Arnoul in 2015 to About Simone Signoret who was her friend until her death. With an assumed freedom, the two actresses had chosen to focus on their loves and not their careers. Sex symbol of the 1950s, between Martine Carol and Brigitte Bardot, Françoise Arnoul s'was told with Jean-Louis Mingalon in an autobiography entitled
Animal endowed with happiness
(Belfond, 1995).
Read also: Signoret-Montand, the legendary couple of French cinema would be one hundred years old
Daughter of a general father who sees her as a diplomat and of an actress mother who hopes to be an actress, the young Françoise was born Françoise Gautsch - Arnoul is the fourth given name of her father - on June 9, 1931 in Constantine (Algeria).
She takes dance and piano lessons, is a high school student in Rabat, then in Paris, tries to enter the Opera, but she is no longer of age.
As a teenager, she admired Edwige Feuillère in
La Duchesse de Langeais
and Michèle Morgan in
La Loi du Nord
. What decides her to launch out in the cinema. Thanks to Yvonne Roussel, Michèle Morgan's sister, the pretty brunette enrolled in the drama class of Madame Andrée Bauer-Thérond attended by Anouk Aimée, Catherine Sellers and Roger Hanin. Françoise Arnoul made her debut on the big screen in 1949, at the age of 18, as a bitch in
L'Épave
, a drama by Willy Rozier.
Quickly famous, she is especially sought after for roles of sulphurous and lost girls:
The Companions of the Night
,
La Rage au Corps
,
Secrets d'Alcôve
, the three directed by Ralph Habib.
But it is the title role of
The Forbidden Fruit
according to Georges Simenon offered to him by Henri Verneuil in 1952 that magnifies his plastic.
A mischievous, casual and sensual look to damn a saint, she is the mistress of a serious and poignant Fernandel.
Nini, the pretty laundress of French Cancan
Nini, the laundress of French cancan by Jean Renoir (1954) allows the actress to use another color: “
I introduced myself to him by resembling as much as possible a woman emerging from a painting by Auguste Renoir.
», Remembers Françoise Arnoul who played with Jean Gabin, promoted owner of the Moulin Rouge.
And met on the set her husband Georges Cravenne, the future creator of the César and his two great "
friends
", Simone Signoret and Yves Montand.
Henri Verneuil will direct it four more times, notably in a successful film which was close to his heart:
Des gens sans importance
, again with Jean Gabin in driver and also Pierre Mondy.
To read also: Jean Renoir told from A to Z
Discreet, the actress preferred to talk about others than herself and evoked a "
life during which I took a lot, but I also gave a lot
". In the years 1950-1960, she became a "
sacred little monster
": Yves Allégret was one of the first to notice her, Marcel Carné trusted her for The country where I come from, Henri Decoin offered her his famous black raincoat. to embody the resistant of
La Chatte
, then
The cat takes out its claws
, supervised by Roger Hanin and Bernard Blier, Roger Vadim transforms her into a lover in Venice with Robert Hossein for
Sait-on toujours
…, Michel Boisrond makes her the mistress of the juvenile Alain Delon in
The Path of the Schoolchildren
according to the work of Marcel Aymé - no one has forgotten the scene where he draws the seam of the stockings on his legs that he cannot offer him -, and Julien Duvivier hires him for his sketches film,
The Devil and the Ten Commandments
, where she finds Fernandel.
"
You have to have a lot of anxiety and ask yourself the right questions so that things are the best possible
", said Françoise Arnoul who had refused
Doctor No
(1963), the first James Bond in favor of Ursula Andress. Signed with Simone Signoret the Manifesto of 343 Salopes for the freedom of abortion. And put his career on hold to encourage his companion Bernard Paul, assistant director of Costa-Gavras, "
a
momentous
encounter
", she specified. He will offer him a role in
Last Release before Roissy
(1977), and together, they will create a production company.
The years 1980-1990 see it in television films of Jean Marbeuf in particular. Her last film appearance dates back to 2016, she was in Paul Vecchiali's Le Cancre. His character asked the 85-year-old director who played a man haunted by his past loves: "
What did you like about me?"
"
Your delicacy, your intelligence, your commitment,
" he replied. Three qualities that perfectly define Françoise Arnoul.
