Delphine Seyrig Biography

MARITAL STATUS
Professions Actress , Director , Producer
French nationality
Birth April 10, 1932 (Beirut – Lebanon)
Death October 15, 1990
BIOGRAPHY
Daughter of the archaeologist Henri Seyrig and the navigator Hermine de Saussure, Delphine Seyrig was born in Beirut in 1932. Spending her childhood in several countries, the young girl took drama lessons from the age of 16. At the age of twenty, she landed her first role in the play L’Amour en papier by Louis Ducreux and tried to enter the Théâtre national populaire, but because her tone of voice was considered too particular, her application was refused. A voice that the actor Michael Lonsdale (with whom she played five times) would later compare to the music of a cello. In 1950 the young actress married the American painter Jack Youngerman, with whom she had a son 6 years later, Duncan Youngerman. The couple settled in New York for a few years and Delphine Seyrig took lessons at L’Actor studio then directed by Lee Strasberg . In 1958, she landed a role in the medium-length film by Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie , Pull my Daisy . Doing a series of plays, the young actress was noticed by Alain Resnais – during a trip to New York – while she was playing in An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen . Delphine Seyrig returned to France in 1960 and the director offered her a role in his second feature film Last Year at Marienbad . The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1961 and, two years later, received an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay. Thanks to this film, Delphine Seyrig gained notoriety. The filmmaker offered her the lead role in his next film: Muriel ou le temps d’un retour , for which she won the Prize for Best Actress in Venice in 1963.

In 1966 she made an appearance in the mockumentary Who Are You Are you Polly Maggoo? directed by the former Vogue photographer William Klein (whom she met again in 1969 for Mister Freedom ), before filming for the first time, the following year, under the direction of the woman who would become her friend: Marguerite Duras . The two women will work together four times. The first time in 1967 for La Musica , the film adaptation of Marguerite Duras’ play, they met again in 1975 on the set of the film India Song , in which the actress shared the poster with Michael Lonsdale . The film, with its captivating music, was nominated three times for the Césars in 1976 (best actress for Delphine Seyrig, best music for Carlos d’Alessio and best sound forMichel Vionnet ). A year later, Marguerite Duras continued with Son nom de Venise in Calcutta desert . The film uses the India Song soundtrack by adding it to other images: the ruins of the Palais Rothschild in Boulogne. Baxter, Vera Baxter , in 1977, marks the last collaboration of the two women: in this ode to femininity Claudine Gabay confides in Delphine Seyrig and tells her that her fickle husband pays a man to be his wife’s lover .

In 1968, she starred under the direction of Joseph Losey in Accident . The film received the Grand Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as the International Critics’ Union Prize. The actress reunited with the director in 1973 for the feature film The Doll’s House .
In Stolen Kisses by François Truffaut she plays opposite Jean-Pierre Léaud . She plays the role of the disturbing Fabienne Tabard, the very incarnation of the free and inaccessible woman. Then met Luis Buñuel who offered him the role of the prostitute in The Milky Way before giving him, in 1972, one of the first roles in The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie , awarded the Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1973.

Continuing on her momentum, the actress played a series of roles at the beginning of the seventies, she was the fairy in Jacques Demy ‘s Peau d’âne , succumbing to the charm of Sami Frey (whose life she shared until her death in 1990) in The Diary of a Suicide by Stanislav Stanojevic (selected at Cannes and Venice in 1972), and is one of the rare women in the casting of The Jackal by Fred Zinnemann . From 1975 she toured mainly under the direction of women: Liliane de Kermadec ( Aloïse & Le Petit Pommier ), Chantal Akerman ( Jeanne Dielman 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Brussels , Les Années 80 et Golden Eighties ), Agnès Varda ( Documenteur ), without forgetting Marguerite Duras . An emblematic figure of the free woman, Delphine Seyrig is above all a committed feminist. In May 68 she took part in the feminist movement and participated in the Manifesto of the 343 in 1971, to defend the freedom to abort. For the collective “Les Insoumuses”, she collaborates with

Carole Roussopoulos & Ioana Wieder and directs activist films, the most notable being the documentary Sois belle et tais-toi , for which she meets 24 actresses who confide to her certain filming experiences and talk about the place of women in the cinema industry.
In 1982, again with Carole Roussopoulos and Ioana Wieder, she founded the Simone de Beauvoir Audiovisual Center, which lists audiovisual documents on women’s rights and struggles. Alongside her commitments, she pursued cinema, starring opposite Maurice Bejart in Je t’aime, tu danses , followed by Mario Monicelli ‘s drama Dear Micheal , Silver Bear for Best Director at the 1976 Berlinale and was nominated for a César for best actress in 1978 for her role in Repérages by Michel Soutter in which she co-starred with Jean-Louis Trintignant .

In 1981, she was once again nominated for a César for Best Supporting Actress for Dear Unknown by Moshe Mizrahi in which she co-starred with Simone Signoret and Jean Rochefort . In 1988, she offered a brilliant interpretation of Sarah Bernhardt on her deathbed in Sarah and the cry of the lobster by Marcel Bluwal before reuniting with Sami Frey for Benoît Jacquot ‘s television film , The Beast in the Jungle . Joan of Arc of Mongolia by Ulrike Ottinger will mark her last appearance in the cinema in 1989.
Delphine Seyrig died on October 15, 1990, at the age of 58, following lung cancer.