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French poster postcard by Editions 'Humour à la Carte', Paris, no. A-C 125. Jessica Lange in Frances (Graeme Clifford, 1982).

American film actress Jessica Lange (1949) won as well Oscars, Emmys and a Tony Award. However, her disastrous film debut was also nearly the end of her career.

Jessica Phyllis Lange was born in 1949, in Cloquet, Minnesota, USA. Her parents were Dorothy (née Sahlman) and Al Lange (1913-1989), a teacher and travelling salesman. She has two older sisters named Ann Lange and Jane Lange and a younger brother named George Lange who is a pilot. Jessica obtained a scholarship to study art at the University of Minnesota but instead went to Paris to study drama. She moved to New York, working as a model, until producer Dino De Laurentiis cast her as the female lead in King Kong (John Guillermin, 1976) opposite Jeff Bridges. The film attracted much unfavourable comment and, as a result, Lange was off the screen for three years. She played a small but showy part in Bob Fosse's All That Jazz (1979). Then she gave a memorable performance as an adulterous waitress in the thriller The Postman Always Rings Twice (Bob Rafelson, 1981), opposite Jack Nicholson. The following year, she received rave reviews for her exceptional portrayal of tragic actress Frances Farmer in Frances (Graeme Clifford, 1982). On set, she also met her new partner, actor Sam Shepard. She won a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her part as a beautiful Soap Opera actress in Tootsie (Sydney Pollack, 1982) starring Dustin Hoffman. She had a Best Actress Oscar Nomination in 1984 for Country which she also helped to produce.

Jessica Lange was outstanding as country singer Patsy Cline in Sweet Dreams (Karel Reisz, 1985). She again received acclaim as a lawyer who defends her father (Armin Mueller-Stahl) and discovers his past in Music Box (Costa-Gravas, 1989). She played another memorable role as a scared housewife in Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991) opposite Nick Nolte and Robert De Niro. In 1992, she made her Broadway debut playing Blanche in Tennessee Williams's 'A Streetcar Named Desire'. For her role as a mentally unbalanced wife of a military officer (Tommy Lee Jones) in Blue Sky (Tony Richardson, 1994), she won a Best Actress Academy Award. In 1995, she starred opposite Liam Neeson in the historical epic Rob Roy (Michael Caton-Jones, 1995). Lange played Albert Finney's wife in Tim Burton's Big Fish (2003). In 2009, she won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie Emmy for Grey Gardens (2009). Three years later she received the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie for American Horror Story (2011). In 2016 she won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Play for 'Long Day's Journey into Night'. Jessica Lange was married to photographer Francisco Paco Grande (1970-1982) and had a long-time relationship with actor and author Sam Shepard (1982-2009). She has three children: Aleksandra 'Shura' Lange Baryshnikov (1981) by dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov; Hannah Jane Shepard (1986) and Samuel Walker Shepard (1987) by Sam Shepard.

Sources: Thanassis Agathos (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.

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French postcard by Editions 'Humour à la Carte', Paris, no. ST-34. Tina Turner and Mel Gibson in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (George Miller, 1985).

With 100 million records sold, American singer and icon Tina Turner (1939-2023) is one of the best-selling artists ever. She won as many as 12 Grammy Awards, the most prestigious awards in the music industry. The Queen of Rock 'n Roll, was also the star of a few films.

American-Australian actor Mel Gibson (1956) became known worldwide thanks to the small-budgeted action film Mad Max (1979). He went on to star in such acclaimed films as Gallipoli (1981) and The Bounty (1984). In 1987, he became a superstar with the buddy cop action-comedy film series Lethal Weapon (1987-1998). As director of Braveheart (1995), he won both the Academy Award for best director and best film. Gibson also produced and directed The Passion of the Christ (2004) about the last phase of Jesus Christ's life on earth.

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French postcard by Editions Humour à la Carte, Paris, no. 3735.

French actor Patrick Dewaere (1947-1982) was a promising and popular European film star in the 1970s. In 1982, the actor shot himself. He was only 35 years old.

Patrick Dewaere was born Patrick Jean Marie Henri Bourdeaux in Saint-Brieuc in Britanny in the north-west region of France in 1947. He was the third of six children of actress Mado Maurin. His five siblings, Jean-Pierre Maurin (1941 - 1996), Yves-Marie Maurin (1944), Dominique Maurin (1949), Jean-Francois Maurin (1957) and Marie-Veronique Maurin (1960), all became actors, with varying degrees of success. Patrick made his film debut at the age of four under the name Patrick Maurin in Monsieur Fabre/Amazing Monsieur Fabre (Henri Diamant Berger, 1951) featuring Pierre Fresnay. More small film roles followed in La Madelon (Jean Boyer, 1954) with Line Renaud, and En effeuillant la marguerite/Plucking the Daisy (Marc Allégret, 1956) starring Brigitte Bardot and Daniel Gélin. Taunted by his schoolyard friends for his young film endeavours, he learned sensitivity and isolation at an early age. Other films during this period included Gene Kelly's The Happy Road (1957) and the comedy Mimi Pinson (Robert Darène, 1958) with Dany Robin. As a young adult in the early 1960s, Patrick appeared on French television and in the star-studded war film Paris brûle-t-il?/Is Paris burning? (René Clément, 1966). In 1968, he joined Café de la Gare, an experimental theatre troupe where he remained for nearly a decade. The performers also included such future stars as Gérard Depardieu and Miou-Miou. He became romantically involved with Miou-Miou. A child, Angèle Herry-Leclerc, was born to this liaison in 1974, but the couple broke up after only two years. After initially appearing under the pseudonym Patrick Maurin, he finally opted for Dewaere, his grandmother's maiden name. In this period he played small parts in films. The best was the art-house hit Themroc (Claude Faraldo, 1976), an absurdist black comedy starring Michel Piccoli as an urban caveman.

Patrick Dewaere made his breakthrough in the cinema with his major role in Bertrand Blier's anarchic comedy Les Valseuses/Going Places (1974). Gérard Depardieu and Dewaere played two young rebellious petty thugs who team up with Miou-Miou. The three earned instant ‘anti-hero’ stardom with their roles. He followed this with the romantic comedy Lily, aime-moi (Maurice Dugowson, 1975), and the crime drama Adieu, poulet/The French Detective (Pierre Granier-Deferre, 1975) as Lino Ventura's sidekick. Despite Dewaere's obvious talent for comedy, he was often successfully cast as a fragile, neurotic individual. He earned marks for his off-balanced role in La meilleure façon de marcher/The Best Way to Walk (Claude Miller, 1976). In Italy he appeared in Marcia trionfale/Victory March (Marco Bellocchio, 1976) with Michel Placido and Franco Nero, and in L'ingorgo - Una storia impossibile/Black Out in Autostrada (Luigi Comencini, 1979) about the biggest traffic jam ever seen. He starred again with Depardieu in Blier's Oscar-winning cross-over comedy Préparez vos mouchoirs/Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (Bertrand Blier, 1978). Gary Brumburgh writes at IMDb: “Infinitely more interested in searching out complex roles than fame, his work in films were more often than not experimental, low budget and quirky in style. He appeared innately drawn to playing sensitive, scruffy, miserable neurotics, misfits and losers.“ Examples are his characters in the soccer drama Coup de tête/Hothead (Jean-Jacques Annaud, 1979), the detective Série noire (Alain Corneau, 1979), Un mauvais fils/A Bad Son (Claude Sautet, 1980), Hôtel des Amériques/Hotel America (André Téchiné, 1981) with Catherine Deneuve, and the critically-acclaimed Beau-père/Stepfather (Bertrand Blier, 1981). Unlike his counterpart Depardieu, Patrick's fame never branched out to Hollywood, but he was recognized consistently for his superlative portrayals. Amazingly, he was nominated for seven César awards (the French Oscar) but never won. Shortly after the release of Paradis Pour Tous/Paradise for All (Alain Jessua, 1982), a black comedy where his character suffers from depression and commits suicide, the actor shot himself with a rifle in a Paris hotel. He was 35 years old. At the time he was working on Claude Lelouch's film Édith et Marcel/Edith and Marcel (1983). It was a shocking, inexplicable end to friends, fans and family alike. For eleven years Dewaere was married to French actress Sotha. They had one daughter, Lola. A year after his death, the Patrick Dewaere Award was established in France. The actor was the subject of the French documentary Patrick Dewaere, which was shown at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival.

Sources: Yuri German (AllMovie), Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

French postcard by Editions Humour à la carte, Paris, no. AC-1204. Affiche: Benjamin Baltimore, 1986. Maruschka Detmers in Diavolo in corpo/Devil in the Flesh (Marco Bellocchio, 1986).

Dutch actress Maruschka Detmers (1962) moved to France as a teenager, where she captured the attention of director Jean-Luc Godard, and made her dramatic debut in his Prénom Carmen (1983). Other noteworthy films include Hanna's War (1988) and The Mambo Kings (1992), but she is best known for her role in Diavolo in corpo/Devil in the Flesh (1986).

Maruschka Detmers was born in 1962 in Schoonebeek, The Netherlands. Her father was a veterinarian. As a 17-year-old, she moved to Paris to work there as an au pair and take acting lessons. In Paris, she was discovered by the French film director Jean-Luc Godard, after which she played the female lead in his film Prénom Carmen/ First Name - Carmen (Jean-Luc Godard, 1983), very loosely based on Bizet's opera Carmen. Prénom Carmen tells the parallel stories of a quartet rehearsing Beethoven and a group of young people robbing a bank, supposedly to get the funds to make a film. Louis Schwartz at AllMovie: “The film is a meditation on the difficulties of youth in the 1980s, the relations between cinema and capital, and how to film the human body. Godard fills the film with carefully composed shots of bodies playing music, making love, and acting violently. His attention to bodies in First Name: Carmen makes the film's images very close to sculptures, particularly those of Rodin.” At the Venice International Film Festival, Godard was awarded the Golden Lion for his film. In 1985, Detmers was nominated for the Cesar for Best Supporting Actress (Meilleure actrice dans un second rôle) for La pirate/The Pirate (Jacques Doillon, 1984) starring Jane Birkin. The following year, Detmers starred in the Italian erotic drama Diavolo in corpo/Devil in the Flesh (1986) directed by Marco Bellocchio. An adaptation of Raymond Radiguet’s novel Le Diable au corps, the film stars Federico Pitzalis as a high school student who falls in love with an older woman (Detmers). The film caused a fuss because of a darkly lit but explicit fellatio scene of which the authenticity later was disputed. The film was released in the United States in both R and X-rated versions. Also controversial was Marco Ferreri’s satirical comedy Y'a Bon Les Blancs/Um, Good, De White Folks (1988), in which members of a European humanitarian organisation in Africa end up being eaten by cannibals. More commercial was her leading role as Hannah Senesh, a real-life Hungarian Jew who became a martyr to the cause of freedom during WW II, in Hanna's War (Menahem Golan, 1988), produced by the Cannon Group. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “The script, based on Hannah's diaries (as edited by Yoel Palgi), surprisingly downplays heroics in favour of sensationalism; the prison scenes could just as well have been lifted from a Linda Blair "babes behind bars" picture. Even so, Detmers is excellent in the title role, while Ellen Burstyn is likewise superb as Hannah's mother.”

Maruschka Detmers continued her career in French, Italian and American productions. In the romantic comedy Deux/Two (Claude Zidi, 1988), she played opposite Gerard Depardieu. James Travers at Films de France: “Most of the weaknesses in the script are well-concealed by Zidi’s focused and expressive direction, and by the well-judged performances by Depardieu and Detmers. The two actors bring genuine feeling and sensitivity to their portrayals.” Other French films include Comedie d'été/Summer Interlude (Daniel Vigne, 1989), and Le brasier (Eric Barbier, 1991) with Jean-Marc Barr and Thierry Fortineau. The latter, a drama about the social struggles of a mining area in the 1930s, was a commercial disaster, selling less than 40,000 tickets in the Paris region. However, Detmers fell in love with co-star Thierry Fortineau and from their relationship daughter Jade Fortineau was born in 1991. Detmers’s best-known American film is the musical drama Mambo Kings (Arne Glimcher, 1992), starring Antonio Banderas and Armand Assante. It is an adaptation of Oscar Hijuelos's 1989 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. The film received mostly positive reviews from critics but underperformed at the box office. Later Detmers mostly worked in the French cinema. Her later films include Te quiero (Manuel Poirier, 2001) with Sergi López, the drama Le Père Goriot/Father Goriot (Jean-Daniel Verhaeghe, 2004), based on the novel by Honoré de Balzac featuring Charles Aznavour, and the teen comedy Nos 18 ans/School's Out (Frédéric Berthe, 2008). In Germany, she appeared opposite Tom Schilling in the comedy Robert Zimmermann wundert sich über die Liebe/ Robert Zimmermann Is Tangled Up in Love (Leander Haussmann, 2008) about a Spring-Autumn romance. Finally, she made her Dutch film debut in the comedy-drama Ventoux (Nicole van Kilsdonk, 2015). However, she now mostly works for French television, including a part in the hit series Marseille (Thomas Gilou, Florent-Emilio Siri, 2016), starring Gérard Depardieu. Maruschka Detmers lives in Paris. Her daughter Jade Fortineau is now also an actress.

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Louis Schwartz (AllMovie), James Travers (Films de France), AllMovie, Wikipedia (English and Dutch) and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

French postcard by Editions Humour à la Carte, Paris, no. A-C 1265. Photo: German poster by Pandora Film. Roberto Benigni, Tom Waits and John Lurie in Down By Law (Jim Jarmusch, 1986).

Roberto Benigni (1952) is Italy’s most popular film comedian since Totó. He worked with famous directors like Jim Jarmusch, Marco Ferreri, Bernardo Bertolucci, Federico Fellini, Wim Wenders, and Woody Allen. Benigni also directed several comedies himself, including the award-winning La vita è bella/Life Is Beautiful (1997).

Roberto Remigio Benigni was born in Manciano La Misericordia, Italy, in 1952 His parents were Luigi Benigni and Isolina Papini and he has three sisters. His father worked as a farmer, carpenter, and bricklayer. He was a prisoner in the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen between 1943 and 1945. Roberto used his stories as the basis for his film La vita è bella (1997). His mother worked as a fabric inspector. Roberto was raised Catholic, served as an altar boy, and attended a seminary in Florence, planning to become a priest. In 1971, he moved to Rome where he took part in some experimental theatre shows, some of which he also directed. In 1975, Benigni had his first theatrical success with the play Cioni Mario di Gaspare fu Giulia (1975), written and directed by Giuseppe Bertolucci. Benigni played the character of Mario Cioni, a character he later resumed in the variety TV series Onda Libera (Renzo Arbore, 1976). Benigni became famous in Italy when he interpreted in Onda Libera the satirical song L'inno del corpo sciolto (The Hymn of the Slippery Body), about the joys of defecation. It caused such a scandal that the censors suspended the series. Benigni played Mario Cioni again in his first film, the comedy Berlinguer ti voglio bene/Berlinguer, I Love You (Giuseppe Bertolucci, 1977) with Alida Valli as his mother. The title quotes Benigni´s character´s declaration of love for Enrico Berlinguer, then the leader of the Italian Communist Party. Later, Benigni appeared during a public political demonstration by the Italian Communist Party. On this occasion, he lifted and cradled Berlinguer, normally a very serious figure. It was an unprecedented but very successful act, which led politicians to exhibit more popular behaviour from that moment on. His popularity increased with L'altra domenica (1976-1979), another TV show in which Benigni portrays a lazy film critic who never watches the films he's asked to review. In 1979 he had international success with the symbolic social drama Chiedo asilo/Seeking Asylum (Marco Ferreri, 1979) about a well-meaning teacher and his young pre-school class. The film was entered into the 30th Berlin International Film Festival where it won the Silver Bear - Special Jury Prize. Bernardo Bertolucci cast him in a small speechless role as a window upholsterer in La Luna/Luna (1979) starring Jill Clayburgh. In 1980 Benigni met actress Nicoletta Braschi, who in 1991 became his wife. She co-starred in his first film as director, the comedy Tu mi turbi/You Upset Me (Roberto Benigni, 1983), and in most of his later films. Next, he played with the popular comic actor Massimo Troisi in Non ci resta che piangere/Nothing Left To Do But Cry (Roberto Benigni, Massimo Troisi, 1984). In this fable, the two protagonists are suddenly thrown back in time to the 15th century, just a little before 1492. They start looking for Christopher Columbus in order to stop him from discovering the Americas (for very personal love reasons) but are not able to reach him.

Roberto Benigni was censored again in the 1980s for calling Pope John Paul II ‘Wojtylaccio’ during a TV show (‘Wojtylaccio’, which translates as ‘Bad Wojtyla’, but with a friendly meaning in Tuscan dialect). Benigni starred in three films by American director Jim Jarmusch. In Down By Law (Jim Jarmusch, 1986) he played Bob, an innocent foreigner living in the United States, convicted of manslaughter, whose irrepressible good humour and optimism help him to escape and find love. His co-stars were Tom Waits, John Lurie, and Braschi, who of course played his beloved. In Night on Earth (Jim Jarmusch, 1991) he played a cabbie in Rome, who causes his passenger, a priest (Paolo Bonacelli), great discomfort, and a fatal heart attack by confessing his bizarre sexual experiences. He also starred in the first of Jarmusch's segments in Coffee and Cigarettes (2003). In 1988 Benigni began a long-lasting collaboration with screenwriter Vincenzo Cerami. Their first film was Il piccolo diavolo/The Little Devil (Roberto Benigni, 1988) with Walter Matthau. For his part as the little devil, Benigni won the David di Donatello Award for Best Actor. It was the start of a series of comedies that were very popular in Italy, including Johnny Stecchino/Johnny Toothpick (Roberto Benigni, 1992), and Il mostro/The Monster (Roberto Benigni, Yves Attal, 1994). The box-office hit Johnny Stecchino, brought him considerable international attention. Benigni had a rare serious role in Fellini's last film, La voce della luna/The Voice of the Moon (Federico Fellini, 1989). He also starred in Wim Wenders' Faraway, So Close (1993) and Son of the Pink Panther (Blake Edwards, 1993) as Inspector Clouseau's (Peter Sellers) illegitimate son who is assigned to save the Princess of Lugash. Also in this film are Panther regulars Herbert Lom, Burt Kwouk, and a star of the original 1963 film, Claudia Cardinale. The film bombed in the US but was a hit in Italy. Outside his homeland, Benigni is probably best known for his tragicomedy La vita è bella/Life Is Beautiful (Roberto Benigni, 1997), also written by Vincenzo Cerami. The film is about an Italian Jewish man who tries to protect his son's innocence during his internment at a Nazi concentration camp, by telling him that the Holocaust is an elaborate game and he must adhere very carefully to the rules to win. Benigni's father had spent three years in a concentration camp in Bergen-Belsen, and La vita è bella is based in part on his father's experiences. Although the story and presentation of the film had been discussed during production with different Jewish groups to limit the offence it might cause, critics accused the film of presenting the Holocaust without much suffering. La vita è bella was shown at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival and won the Grand Prix. In 1999 Benigni also won the Oscar for Best Actor. The score by Nicola Piovani won another Oscar for Best Original Dramatic Score, and the film was awarded the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Famously, Benigni climbed over and then stood on the backs of the seats in front of him and applauded the audience before proceeding to the stage. After winning his Best Actor Oscar, he said in his acceptance speech, "This is a terrible mistake because I used up all my English!" The film grossed worldwide more than $200 million. He then appeared in the live-action film Astérix & Obélix contre César/Asterix and Obelix vs Caesar (Claude Zidi, 1999), based on Goscinny and Uderzo's Astérix comics and featuring Christian Clavier as Asterix and Gérard Depardieu as Obélix. Benigni played Lucius Detritus, a corrupt Roman provincial governor who wants to kill Julius Caesar.

Roberto Benigni’s next film, the live-action Pinocchio (Roberto Benigni, 2002) was one of the costliest films in Italian cinema ever. It performed well in Italy, but it bombed in North America. Pinocchio received six nominations at the David di Donatello Awards, winning two, as well as winning one of the two awards it was nominated for at the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists. At the 23rd Golden Raspberry Awards, however, Benigni was named the Worst Actor for his role as Pinocchio. Benigni gave a typically energetic and revealing interview for Fellini: I'm a Born Liar (Damian Pettigrew, 2002), a cinematic portrait of the maestro that was nominated for Best Documentary at the European Film Awards. His next film was La tigre e la neve/The Tiger and the Snow (Roberto Benigni, 2005) a romantic comedy set in contemporary Rome and in occupied Baghdad during the Iraq War. In 2006 and 2007, Benigni toured Italy with his 90-minute one-man show TuttoDante (Everything About Dante). Combining current events and memories of his past narrated with an ironic tone, Benigni then begins a journey of poetry and passion through the world of the Divine Comedy. He performed TuttoDante during 130 shows in Italian piazzas, arenas, and stadiums for about one million spectators. Over 10 million more spectators watched the TV show, Il V canto dell’Inferno/The 5th Song of Hell (2007). In 2008-2009, Benigni brought TuttoDante to the United States, Canada and. His latest film appearance was in a segment of To Rome with Love (Woody Allen, 2012). Benigni played a man who wakes up one morning to discover that he has inexplicably become a national celebrity. To Rome with Love received mixed reviews but was a box office success. In 2019, he starred as Mister Geppetto in Matteo Garrone's adaptation of Pinocchio (2019). Pinocchio was met with positive reviews from critics. It received 15 nominations at the 2020 David di Donatello Awards, nine nominations at the Nastro d'Argento Awards, and two Academy Award nominations. Benigni won the Nastro d'Argento for Best Supporting Actor.

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards..

French postcard in the Le jour se lève series by Editions Humour à la carte, Paris, no. ST-177. Photo: Jean-Pierre Larcher.

Beautiful and talented Mathilda May (1965) is a French film actress. Her film work is primarily in French and made by such acclaimed directors as Claude Chabrol, Werner Herzog, and Jacques Demy. She also appeared in a few Hollywood blockbusters, but with little success.

Mathilda May was born Karima Mathilda Haim in Paris in 1965. Her father is playwright Victor Haïm, who is from a Greek- and Turkish-Jewish family. Her mother is the Swedish ballet teacher and choreographer Margareta Hanson. She was a prima ballerina for the Sweden Malmo ballet company. At age 16 May won the Premier Prix du Conservatoire de Danse de Paris (First Prize of the Paris Dance Conservatory). After a part in a German TV series, she made her film debut opposite Jason Connery in the fantasy Nemo/Dream One (Arnaud Sélignac, 1984). Jason Buchanan at AllMovie about her: “A deep-tanned, brown-eyed beauty whose background in ballet lends her a certain onscreen elegance unrivalled by many of her contemporaries,” Internationally she is best known for her role as a seductive vampire in the British Science Fiction horror film Lifeforce (Tobe Hooper, 1985), with Steve Railsback and Peter Firth. Wikipedia notes that May is naked for most of her performance in this film. Lifeforce was the first film of Tobe Hooper's three-picture deal with Cannon Films, following his enormous success with Poltergeist (1982), which was a collaboration with producer Steven Spielberg. The other two films are the remake of Invaders from Mars and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. May followed this with parts in French films such as the comedy Les Rois du gag (Claude Zidi, 1985) with Michel Serrault, and La vie dissolue de Gérard Floque (Georges Lautner, 1987). She won a César award for Most Promising Actress for her role in the French-Italian thriller Le cri du hibou/The Cry of the Owl (Claude Chabrol, 1987) based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith. She starred opposite Yves Montand in the musical Trois places pour le 26/Three Seats for the 26th (1988), scripted and directed by Jacques Demy to music by Michel Legrand. In 1989, she was the recipient of the Prix Romy Schneider.

Mathilda May appeared in such non-French films as Naked Tango (Leonard Schrader, 1991) with Vincent D'Onofrio, Becoming Colette (Danny Huston, 1991) and the Spanish-French production La Teta y la luna/The Tit and the Moon (Bigas Luna, 1994) with Gérard Darmon. She also appeared in the space adventure game Privateer 2: The Darkening (Steve Hilliker, Erin Roberts, 1996) and played the Basque terrorist Isabella in the action film The Jackal (Michael Caton-Jones, 1997) with Bruce Willis and Richard Gere. Her most interesting film of this period is Cerro Torre: Schrei aus Stein/Scream of Stone (Werner Herzog, 1991) about a climbing expedition on Cerro Torre, one of the mountains of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field in South America. The film was shot on location at Cerro Torre, with several scenes filmed close to the summit. In 1992, May recorded an album called Joy of Love. In the following deacades May mostly worked for TV. Her incidental French films include Là-bas... mon pays (Alexandre Arcady, 2000), the drama and thriller La Fille coupée en deux/A Girl Cut in Two (Claude Chabrol, 2007) starring Ludivine Sagnier, and the omnibus comedy Les Infidèles/The Players (2012) directed by and starring Jean Dujardin and Gilles Lellouche. Mathilda May has been married three times: Her first husband was Paul Powell, while her second husband was Gérard Darmon, with whom she has two children, daughter Sarah (1994) and son Jules (1997). Her third husband was Philippe Kelly.

Sources: Jason Buchanan (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

French postcard in the Le jour se lève series by Editions Humour à la carte, Paris, no. ST-170. Photo: Jean-Pierre Larcher.

French actress Juliette Binoche (1964) has appeared in more than 60 international films. She won numerous international awards and has appeared on stage across the world. André Téchiné made her a star in France with the leading role in his drama Rendez-vous (1985). Her sensual performance in The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Philip Kaufman, 1988) launched her international career. Other career highlights are her roles in Three Colors: Blue (Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1993), The English Patient (Anthony Minghella, 1996), for which she won an Oscar, and Caché (Michael Haneke, 2005).

Juliette Binoche was born in Paris, in 1964. She was the daughter of Jean-Marie Binoche, a director, actor, and sculptor, and Monique Yvette Stalens, a teacher, director, and actress. She is the sister of actress/photographer Marion Stalens. Her parents divorced when she was four, so she grew up living between each parent and a Catholic boarding school. In her teenage years, Juliette began acting at school in stage productions. At 17 she directed and starred in a student production of the Eugène Ionesco play, Exit the King. She studied acting at the Conservatoire National Supérieur d'Art Dramatique (CNSAD), but quit after a short time as she disliked the curriculum. In the early 1980s, she found an agent through a friend and joined a theatre troupe, touring France, Belgium, and Switzerland under the pseudonym Juliette Adrienne. After performing in several stage productions and a few TV productions, Binoche secured her first feature-film appearance with a minor role in the drama Liberty Belle (Pascal Kané, 1983). Her role required just two days on–set but was enough to inspire Binoche to pursue a career in film. In 1983, she auditioned for the female lead in Jean-Luc Godard's' controversial Je vous salue, Marie/Hail Mary (1985), a modern retelling of the Virgin birth. She spent six months on the set of the film in Geneva, although her role in the final cut only contained a few scenes. She gained more significant exposure in Jacques Doillon's critically acclaimed La Vie de Famille/Family Life (1985), cast as the volatile teenage step-daughter of Sami Frey's central character. Director André Téchiné made her a star in France with the leading role in his provocative erotic drama Rendez-vous (1985). The film, co-starring Lambert Wilson and Jean-Louis Trintignant, premiered at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival, winning Best Director. Rendez-vous was a sensation and Binoche became the darling of the festival. In 1986, Binoche was nominated for her first César for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance. She starred opposite Michel Piccoli in the avant-garde thriller Mauvais Sang/Bad Blood (Leos Carax, 1986). Binoche plays Anna the vastly younger lover of Marc (Piccoli) who falls in love with Alex (Denis Lavant), a young thief. Mauvais Sang was a critical and commercial success, leading to Binoche's second César nomination. She gave a sensual performance opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Philip Kaufman, 1988), the adaptation of Milan Kundera's novel. It was Binoche's first English language role and was a worldwide success with critics and audiences alike. In the summer of 1988, Binoche returned to the stage in an acclaimed production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull directed by Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky at Théâtre De L'odéon in Paris. Later that year she began work on Léos Carax's Les Amants du Pont-Neuf. The film was beset by problems and took three years to complete, requiring investment from three producers and funds from the French government. When finally released in 1991, Les Amants du Pont-Neuf was a critical success. Binoche won a European Film Award and her third César nomination for her performance.

Juliette Binoche chose to pursue an international career outside France. Binoche relocated to London for the Emily Bronte adaptation Wuthering Heights (Peter Kosminsky, 1992) with Ralph Fiennes as Heathcliff, and Damage (Louis Malle, 1992) with Jeremy Irons, both enhanced her international reputation. For her performance in Damage, Binoche received her fourth César nomination. She sparked the interest of Steven Spielberg, who offered her roles in three films: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Jurassic Park (1993), and Schindler's List (1993). which she declined. Instead, she chose for Trois Couleurs: Bleu/Three Colors: Blue (Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1993), for which she won the Venice Film Festival Award for Best Actress and a César. The first film in a trilogy inspired by the ideals of the French republic and the colors of its flag, Three Colors: Blue is the story of a young woman who loses her composer husband and daughter in a car accident. Though devastated she learns to cope by rejecting her previous life by rejecting all people, belongings, and emotions. Binoche made cameo appearances in the other two films in Kieślowski's trilogy, Trois couleurs : Blanc/Three Colors: White (1994) and Three Colors: Red/ Trois couleurs : Rouge (1994). Binoche took a short sabbatical during which she gave birth to her son Raphaël in September 1993. In 1995, she returned to the screen in a big-budget adaptation of Jean Giono's Le hussard sur le toit/The Horseman on the Roof (Jean-Paul Rappeneau, 1995) with Olivier Martinez. At the time, it was the most expensive film in the history of French cinema. The film was a box-office success around the world and Binoche was again nominated for a César for Best Actress. She gained further acclaim in The English Patient (Anthony Minghella, 1996), for which she was awarded an Academy Award and a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress in addition to the Best Actress Award at the 1997 Berlin International Film Festival. Juliette Binoche was reunited with director André Téchiné for Alice et Martin (1998), the story of a relationship between an emotionally damaged Parisian musician and her younger lover who hides a dark family secret. Binoche appeared on stage in a 1998 London production of Luigi Pirandello's Clothe the Naked retitled Naked and in a 2000 production of Harold Pinter's Betrayal on Broadway for which she was nominated for a Tony Award. Between 1995 and 2000, she was also the advertising face of the Lancôme perfume Poème.

Juliette Binoche was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance opposite Johnny Depp in the romantic comedy Chocolat (Lasse Hallström, 2000). Another hit was the period drama La Veuve de Saint-Pierre (Patrice Leconte, 2000), for which she was nominated for a César for Best Actress. Opposite Daniel Auteuil, she played the role of a woman who attempts to save a condemned man from the guillotine. The film won favourable reviews and was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. Next, she appeared in Code Unknown (Michael Haneke, 2000), a film which was made following Binoche's approach to the Austrian director. Her critically acclaimed role was a welcome change from playing the romantic heroine in a series of costume dramas. During the following decade, she maintained a successful career, alternating between French and English language roles in both mainstream and art-house productions. "La Binoche" appeared in such films as Jet Lag (Daniele Thompson, 2002) opposite Jean Reno, Caché (Michael Haneke, 2005), Breaking and Entering (Anthony Minghella, 2006) with Jude Law, and Flight of the Red Balloon (Hou Hsiao-Hsien, 2007). Paying homage to Albert Lamorisse's 1957 short The Red Balloon, Hou's film tells the story of a woman's efforts to juggle her responsibilities as a single mother with her commitment to her career as a voice artist. Shot on location in Paris, the film was entirely improvised by the cast. In 2008 Binoche began a world tour with a modern dance production titled in-i, co-created in collaboration with Akram Khan. In 2010, she won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival for her role in Abbas Kiarostami's Certified Copy making her the first actress to win the European ‘Best Actress Triple Crown’ for winning best actress award at the Berlin, Cannes, and Venice film festivals. Later films include Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg, 2011) with Robert Pattinson, Camille Claudel 1915 (Bruno Dumont, 2013), and Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas, 2014). In 2015, Binoche starred on stage in a new English language translation of Antigone, directed by Ivo van Hove. Binoche has two children: a son Raphaël (1993), whose father is André Halle, a professional scuba diver, and a daughter Hana (1999), whose father is actor Benoît Magimel, with whom Binoche starred in Les Enfants du Siècle/Children of the Century (Diane Kurys, 1999).

Sources: Wikipedia, and IMDb.

French postcard in the Le jour se lève series by Editions Humour à la carte, Paris, no. ST-168. Photo: Jean-Pierre Larcher.

Since 1972, French actress Emmanuelle Béart (1963) has appeared in over 50 film and television productions. Initially cast for her extraordinary beauty, Béart has emerged over the years as one of France's best actresses. The sapphire-eyed Béart has been nominated eight times for a César Award an won for Best Supporting Actress in the film Manon des Sources (1986).

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French postcard in the Le jour se lève series by Editions Humour à la carte, Paris, no. ST-167. Photo: Jean-Pierre Larcher.

French actress Julie Delpy (1969) made her first film appearance at 14 in Détective (1985) by Jean-Luc Godard. Since then, she starred in many European films by directors as Bertrand Tavernier, Agnieszka Holland and Krzysztof Kieslowski and such Hollywood movies as the cult hit Before Sunrise (1995). Later she started to write and direct her own films.

Julie Delpy was born in Paris, France, in 1969 to Albert Delpy, a theatre director, and Marie Pillet, an actress in feature films and the avant-garde theater. Julie was an only child. Growing up in Paris, France, she was exposed to the arts and made her first short film at age 12, and wrote her first screenplay at 16. Two years later, she made her film debut in Jean-Luc Godard's Détective (1985). She was excellent next to Michel Piccoli and Juliette Binoche in Mauvais Sang/Bad Blood (1986), director Leos Carax's second film. The film played at the 37th Berlin International Film Festival before being nominated for 3 César Awards (including one for Delpy) and winning the Prix Louis-Delluc. Delpy then starred in the title role in Bertrand Tavernier's La Passion Béatrice (1987). For her performance, she was nominated for a César Award for Most Promising Actress. She used the money she earned to pay for her first trip to New York City. She also appeared in King Lear (Jean-Luc Godard, 1987), a sardonic parody and adaptation of Shakespeare's play, and in the Spanish drama La noche oscura/The Dark Night (Carlos Saura, 1989) in which she appeared as the Virgin Mary. It. Delpy became an international celebrity after starring in Europa Europa (1990) directed by Agnieszka Holland. In the film, she plays a young pro-Nazi who falls in love with the hero, Solomon Perel (Marco Hofschneider), not knowing that he is Jewish. From 1990 till 1995, she studied filmmaking at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She saved the money she earned with acting jobs to help pay her studies. She played leads in Voyager (Volker Schlöndorf, 1991) with Sam Shepard, and Warszawa. Année 5703/Warsaw. Year 5703) (Przemyslaw Skwirczynski, 1992) with Lambert Wilson and Hanna Schygulla. Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski became a mentor to her in 1993, and he cast her in his Trois couleurs: Blanc (1994), the second film of his Three Colors Trilogy. Delpy also appeared briefly in the other two films in the same role. She also starred in several American productions, including Disney’s The Three Musketeers (Stephen Herek, 1993), and Killing Zoe (Roger Avary, 1993), opposite Eric Stoltz. She wrote and directed the short film Blah Blah Blah (1995), which screened at the Sundance Film Festival.

Julie Delpy is best known for Richard Linklater's ‘Before’ series, alongside Ethan Hawke. The series started in 1995 with Before Sunrise, for which she wrote much of her own dialogue. The film received glowing reviews and was considered one of the most significant films of the 1990s' independent film movement. The success of Before Sunrise led to the casting of Delpy in the American horror comedy An American Werewolf in Paris (Anthony Waller, 1997). Delpy reprised her Before Sunrise character, Céline, in the sequels Before Sunset (2004), and Before Midnight (2013). Both were also well received and Before Sunset earned Delpy, who co-wrote the script, her first Academy Award nomination for Writing Adapted Screenplay. In 2001, she became a United States citizen, but she still keeps her French citizenship. She made her feature length directorial debut with Looking for Jimmy (2002) which she also wrote and produced. Delpy is also a musical artist. She released a self-titled album, Julie Delpy in 2003. Delpy directed, wrote, edited, and co-produced the original score for 2 Days in Paris (2007), co-starring Adam Goldberg. The film also features Delpy's real-life parents, Marie Pillet and Albert Delpy, as her character's parents. Her son Leo was born in 2009. Father is her boyfriend Marc Streitenfeld. In 2012 she released 2 Days in New York, a sequel to 2 Days in Paris. The film starred Delpy and actor Chris Rock. Julie Delpy is a resident of Los Angeles. She has been nominated for three César Awards, and two Academy Awards.

Sources: Matt Dicker (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

French postcard in the Le jour se lève series by Editions Humour à la carte, Paris, no. ST-19. Photo: Jean-Pierre Larcher.

Gorgeous Dutch actress Maruschka Detmers (1962) moved to France as a teenager, where she captured the attention of director Jean-Luc Godard, and made her dramatic debut in his Prénom Carmen (1983). Other noteworthy films include Hanna's War (1988) and The Mambo Kings (1992), but she is best known for her role in Diavolo in corpo/Devil in the Flesh (1986).

Maruschka Detmers was born in 1962 in Schoonebeek, The Netherlands. Her father was a veterinarian. As a 17-year-old, she moved to Paris to work there as an au pair and take acting lessons. In Paris, she was discovered by the French film director Jean-Luc Godard , after which she played the female lead in his film Prénom Carmen/ First Name - Carmen (Jean-Luc Godard, 1983), very loosely based on Bizet's opera Carmen. Prénom Carmen tells the parallel stories of a quartet rehearsing Beethoven and a group of young people robbing a bank, supposedly to get the funds to make a film. Louis Schwartz at AllMovie: “The film is a meditation on the difficulties of youth in the 1980s, the relations between cinema and capital, and how to film the human body. Godard fills the film with carefully composed shots of bodies playing music, making love, and acting violently. His attention to bodies in First Name: Carmen makes the film's images very close to sculptures, particularly those of Rodin.” At the Venice International Film Festival , Godard was awarded the Golden Lion for his film. In 1985, Detmers was nominated for the Cesar for Best Supporting Actress (Meilleure actrice dans un second rôle) for La pirate/The Pirate (Jacques Doillon, 1984) starring Jane Birkin. The following year, Detmers starred in the Italian erotic drama Diavolo in corpo/Devil in the Flesh (1986) directed by Marco Bellocchio. An adaptation of Raymond Radiguet’s novel Le Diable au corps, the film stars Federico Pitzalis as a high school student who falls in love with an older woman (Detmers). The film caused a fuss because of a darkly-lit but explicit fellatio-scene of which the authenticity later was disputed. The film was released in the United States in both R and X-rated versions. Also controversial was Marco Ferreri’s satirical comedy Y'a Bon Les Blancs/Um, Good, De White Folks (1988), in which members of a European humanitarian organization in African end up being eaten by cannibals. More commercial was her leading role as Hannah Senesh, a real-life Hungarian Jew who became a martyr to the cause of freedom during WW II, in Hanna's War (Menahem Golan, 1988), produced by the Cannon Group. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “The script, based on Hannah's diaries (as edited by Yoel Palgi), surprisingly downplays heroics in favor of sensationalism; the prison scenes could just as well have been lifted from a Linda Blair "babes behind bars" picture. Even so, Detmers is excellent in the title role, while Ellen Burstyn is likewise superb as Hannah's mother.”

Maruschka Detmers continued her career in French, Italian and American productions. In the romantic comedy Deux/Two (Claude Zidi, 1988), she played opposite Gerard Depardieu. James Travers at Films de France: “Most of the weaknesses in the script are well-concealed by Zidi’s focused and expressive direction, and by the well-judged performances by Depardieu and Detmers. The two actors bring genuine feeling and sensitivity to their portrayals.” Other French films include Comedie d'ete/Summer Interlude (Daniel Vigne, 1989), and Le brasier (Eric Barbier, 1991) with Jean-Marc Barr and Thierry Fortineau. The latter, a drama about the social struggles of a mining area in the 1930s, was a commercial disaster, selling less than 40,000 tickets in the Paris region. However, Detmers fell in love with co-star Thierry Fortineau and from their relationship daughter Jade Fortineau was born in 1991. Detmers’s best known American film is the musical drama Mambo Kings (Arne Glimcher, 1992), starring Antonio Banderas and Armand Assante. It is an adaptation of Oscar Hijuelos's 1989 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. The film received mostly positive reviews from critics, but underperformed at the box office. Later Detmersmostly worked in the French cinema. Her later films include Te quiero (Manuel Poirier, 2001) with Sergi López, the drama Le Père Goriot/Father Goriot (Jean-Daniel Verhaeghe, 2004), based on the novel by Honoré de Balzac and featuring Charles Aznavour, and the teen comedy Nos 18 ans/School's Out (Frédéric Berthe, 2008). In Germany she appeared opposite Tom Schilling in the comedy Robert Zimmermann wundert sich über die Liebe/ Robert Zimmermann Is Tangled Up in Love (Leander Haussmann, 2008) about a Spring-Autumn romance. Finally, she made her Dutch film debut in the comedy-drama Ventoux (Nicole van Kilsdonk, 2015). However, she now mostly works for French television, including a part in the hit series Marseille (Thomas Gilou, Florent-Emilio Siri, 2016), starring Gérard Depardieu. Maruschka Detmers lives in Paris. Her daughter Jade Fortineau is now also an actress.

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Louis Schwartz (AllMovie), James Travers (Films de France), AllMovie, Wikipedia (English and Dutch) and IMDb.