Legendary French actress Jeanne Moreau has died at the age of 89.
Moreau was perhaps best known for her role in the 1962 French New Wave classic Jules et Jim, in which she played the lone woman in a tragic love triangle.
She made her first film appearance in 1950 and her final film appearance came 62 years later in 2012. Her other career highlights included 1960’s Seven Days… Seven Nights, for which she won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival, and 1965’s Viva Maria!, for which she won a BAFTA. She also made several films with revered director Orson Welles, who once called Moreau “the greatest actress in the world”.
She won the top prize in French film acting, the César Award for Best Actress, for her performance in 1992’s The Old Lady Who Walked In The Sea. Four years later, she was awarded a BAFTA Fellowship for her lifetime’s body of work.
We're saddened to learn that Jeanne Moreau has passed away. Moreau received a BAFTA Fellowship in 1996 honouring her remarkable career pic.twitter.com/QtxDHGtXen
— BAFTA (@BAFTA) July 31, 2017
An accomplished singer, Moreau also released several albums and once performed on stage with Frank Sinatra at New York City’s Carnegie Hall.
She died at her home in Paris, the BBC reports. The cause of death has yet to be confirmed.
Paying tribute to Moreau today, French President Emmanuel Macron said the actress had “embodied cinema”, hailing her as a “free spirit” who “always rebelled against the established order”.