Stéphane Audran

Delicately beautiful blonde French actress Stéphane Audran became a star, gaining prominence with starring roles in films directed by her second husband, Claude Chabrol. Born as Colette Suzanne Dacheville, she adapted her stage name in the mid-1950s. A doctor's daughter, she was born and raised in Versailles and began her acting career onstage and in a short film directed by Eric Rohmer. Audran entered features in 1957 with a small role in Herve Bromberger's gangster-themed "La Bonne tisane/Good Medicine/Kill or Cure." After being introduced to Chabrol by Gerard Blain and Jean-Claude Brialy, the actress asked for a part in the director's next film; the result was a supporting role in "Les Cousins" (1959) but it marked the beginning of a their on and off screen relationships. Even after their marriage ended, the actress and the director continued to work together. Chabrol helped to shape the onscreen persona of Audran as that of a coolly elegant middle-class Frenchwoman. Bringing a combination of old-fashioned movie star glamour and a detached sophistication bolstered by a strong acting technique, the actress shone in a number of Chabrol films ranging from "Les Bonne femmes/The Girls" (1960) to "The Champagne Murders/Le Scandale" (1966). "Les Biches/The Does" (1967), in which Audran starred as a lesbian opposite her first husband Jean-Louis Trintignant, brought her the Best Actress Award at the Berlin Film Festival. Other notable Chabrol films include "Le Boucher/The Butcher" (1969), "Juste avant la nuit/Just Before Nightfall" (1971), "Violette Noziere" (1977) and "The Blood of Others" (1984). Audran also appeared in several notable features directed by others, including two which won Oscars as Best Foreign Film: Luis Bunuel's surrealistic comedy "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" (1972) and Gabriel Axel's well-crafted "Babette's Gastebud/Babette's Feast" (1988). Her English-language films tended to be commercial disappontments, although she was well-received as Lord Marchmain's knowing mistress in the TV adaptation of "Brideshead Revisited" (BBC 1982). Stéphane Audran died on March 27, 2018 in Paris at the age of 85.