Stéphane Audran

Stéphane Audran (born Colette Suzanne Dacheville 8 November 1932 – 27 March 2018) was a French film and television actress, known for her performances in award-winning movies such as The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) and Babette's Feast (1987) and in critically acclaimed films like The Big Red One (1980) and Violette Nozière (1978).

Biography

She married French director and screenwriter Claude Chabrolin 1964, after a short marriage to the French actor Jean-Louis Trintignant. Her son by her marriage to Chabrol (which ended in 1980) is the French actor Thomas Chabrol (born in 1963).

Her first major role was in Chabrol's film Les Cousins (1959). She later appeared in most of Chabrol's films. Some of the more noteworthy of his films Audran appeared in were Les Bonnes Femmes (1960), La Femme Infidèle (1968), Les Biches (1968) as a wealthy bisexual who becomes involved in a ménage à trois (she first gained notice in this), Le Boucher (1970) as a school teacher in rural France, Juste Avant La Nuit (1971), and Violette Nozière (1978). She won the Silver Bear for Best Actress for her role in Les Biches at the 18th Berlin International Film Festival.

She also appeared in the first film of Éric Rohmer (Signe du Lion), and in films by Jean Delannoy (La Peau de Torpedo), Gabriel Axel (Babette's Feast, as the mysterious cook, Babette), Bertrand Tavernier (Coup de Torchon, as the wife of the cop turned serial killer) and Samuel Fuller (The Big Red One). The most celebrated of her non-Chabrol roles was as Alice Senechal in Luis Buñuel's Oscar-winning film Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie (1972).

Also appearing in English-language productions, Audran appeared in American features including The Black Bird (1975), and in TV serials including Brideshead Revisited (1981), Mistral's Daughter (1984) and The Sun Also Rises (1984). She starred in the 1974 film version of Agatha Christie's mystery, And Then There Were None.

Audran won a French César Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Violette Nozière(1978), and a British Film Academy award for her part in Just Before Nightfall (1975).

Her son Thomas told the AFP news agency that his mother had died early on 27 March 2018, following a long illness, saying: "She had been in hospital for 10 days and she had returned home. She died peacefully at around 2 am."