Brigitte Fossey

After an impressive youthful debut in René Clément's "Forbidden Games," French actress Brigitte Fossey enjoyed a brief career as a child actor before leaving the business to lead a normal life, eventually returning again to work with such renowned directors as François Truffaut, Robert Altman, and Claude Lelouch. She was only five years old when cast as a child orphaned during World War II in the Academy Award-winning 1952 film "Forbidden Games." Her performance earned her a spot in Gene Kelly's comedy "The Happy Road," after which she withdrew from the business, studying piano, dance, and philosophy before working as an interpreter and translator in Geneva. Her return to cinema came in a leading role in the 1967 romance "The Wanderer," after which she worked regularly in stage, TV, and film productions. She earned a César nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Lelouch's "The Good and the Bad" and played one of the many conquests of the main character in Truffaut's "The Man Who Loved Women." In "Quintet," an unusual science fiction picture (and rare misfire) by Robert Altman, she played the wife of Paul Newman. Later appearances by Fossey have included French series and TV movies.