Anouk Aimée, the French-Jewish movie star who will forever be remembered as the woman in the great romantic drama, by Claude Lelouch, has died at 92, according to an Instagram post by her daughter, Manuela Papatakis. Papatakis wrote: “With my daughter, Galaad, and my granddaughter, Mila, we are immensely saddened to announce the decease of my mother, Anouk Aimée. I was at her bedside when she passed away this morning at her home in Paris; With infinite love.
” Aimée had a glamour and elegance that caught on just as post-war audiences around the world were falling in love with French films, making her into an international sensation in the 1960s. During that decade, Life Magazine wrote of her, “After each picture her enigmatic beauty lingered. .
. [Aimée] is the Left Bank’s most beautiful resident.” Aimée was born Nicole Françoise Florence Dreyfus in Paris in 1932.
Her father was Jewish, although it was not known if he was related to the famous Captain Alfred Dreyfus. Her mother was Catholic and she was raised in that religion, although she reportedly converted to Judaism as an adult to honor her father. While she made most of her movies in France, she was multilingual and appeared in films from around the world, notably Federico Fellini’s (1960) and (1963).
She also starred in the title role in George Cukor’s (1969), an adaptation of the novel by Lawrence Durrell about a mysterious woman. But she will always be associated most firmly with , a love sto.
