Jeanne Moreau

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Jeanne Moreau (born 23 January 1928 in Paris, France) is a French actress, singer, and director.

Jeanne Moreau (left) in Jules et Jim

Moreau was born in Paris to a French father and an English mother of Irish descent.

She studied at the Conservatoire in Paris. In 1947, she made her theatre debut at the Avignon Festival. By her twenties, Moreau was already one of France's leading stage actresses at the Comédie-Française.

In the late 1950s, after making many mainstream films, including several successes, she made Elevator to the Gallows with first-time director Louis Malle. Largely thanks to that film, she went on to work with many of the best known New Wave and avant garde directors.

François Truffaut's explosive New Wave film Jules et Jim (1962) is centered on her magnetic starring role, and is perhaps her most famous film. She has also appeared with a number of other notable directors such as Michelangelo Antonioni (La Notte), Jean-Luc Godard (A Woman Is a Woman), Orson Welles (The Immortal Story), Luis Buñuel (Diary of a Chambermaid), and Philippe Agostini (Dialogue des Carmelites).

Moreau has showcased her unique singing voice in many films and has enjoyed success as a vocalist. She has released several album and once performed with Frank Sinatra at Carnegie Hall.

In addition to acting, Moreau has also worked behind the camera, as a writer, director and producer.

Throughout her life she has maintained friendships with prominent writers such as Jean Cocteau, Jean Genet, Henry Miller, and Marguerite Duras (an interview with Moreau is included in Duras's book Outside: Selected Writings).

Orson Welles called her "the greatest actress in the world" [1], and to this day she remains one of France's most accomplished and talented actresses.