| Geneviève Bujold | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 1, 1942 Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1954–present |
| Spouse | Paul Almond (m. 1967–1973) |
Geneviève Bujold (born July 1, 1942) is a Canadian actress best known for her portrayal of Anne Boleyn in the 1969 film Anne of the Thousand Days, for which she won a Golden Globe Award for best actress and was nominated for an Academy Award.
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Bujold was born in Montreal, Quebec, the daughter of Laurette (née Cavanaugh) and Joseph Firmin Bujold, a bus driver.[1][2] She is of French Canadian and Irish ancestry.[3] Bujold received a strict convent education for 12 years before entering the Montreal's Conservatory of Dramatic Art, where she was trained in the great classics of French theatre. She made her stage debut as Rosine in Le Barbier de Séville.
She got her first major break in 1965, while on tour with the company of the Théâtre du Rideau Vert in Paris, when French director Alain Resnais selected her for a role opposite Yves Montand in his film The War Is Over. She stayed in France to make two more films: Philippe de Broca's Le Roi de Coeur, opposite Alan Bates and Louis Malle's Le voleur, opposite Jean-Paul Belmondo.
Upon her return to Canada, she married film director Paul Almond in 1967, and starred in three of his films: Isabel (1968), The Act of the Heart (1970) and Journey (1972), winning the Canadian Film Award for best actress for the first two. The couple divorced in 1973, but worked again together in Final Assignment (1980) and The Dance Goes On (1991), the latter featuring their son, Mathew Almond (born in 1968).
She also appeared in Michel Brault's film Entre la mer et l'eau douce (1967), and Claude Jutra's film Kamouraska (1973), based on a novel by Anne Hébert, for which she won her third Canadian Film Award for Best Actress.
Bujold appeared in a variety of roles for Canadian and U.S. television, notably for NBC's Hallmark Hall of Fame in George Bernard Shaw's classics Saint Joan in 1967, which earned her an Emmy Award nomination, and Caesar and Cleopatra in 1976, opposite Sir Alec Guinness. She also appeared in Jean Anouilh's Antigone for PBS's Great Performances in 1974.
International recognition came in 1969, when she starred as Anne Boleyn in Charles Jarrott's film Anne of the Thousand Days, opposite Richard Burton. For her performance, she won a Golden Globe Award as Best Actress in a Leading Role, and earned an Academy Award nomination in the same category. The following year, she played the role of the visionary Cassandra in Michael Cacoyannis's film version of The Trojan Women, opposite Katharine Hepburn, Vanessa Redgrave, and Irene Papas.
Bujold was touted to become a star, but her temper led to run-ins with her employer Universal Studios and she walked away from her contract, resulting in a lawsuit, which was settled when she agreed to appear in the 1974 disaster film Earthquake, opposite Charlton Heston, and the 1976 adventure film Swashbuckler, opposite Robert Shaw. In the ensuing years, she appeared in Obsession, opposite Cliff Robertson (1976); Another Man, Another Chance, opposite James Caan (1977); Coma, opposite Michael Douglas (1978); Monsignor, opposite Christopher Reeve (1982); and Tightrope, opposite Clint Eastwood (1984).
She formed a professional friendship with director Alan Rudolph, and appeared in three of his films: Choose Me (1984), Trouble in Mind (1985) and The Moderns (1988). She also appeared in David Cronenberg's psychological horror film Dead Ringers (1988), opposite Jeremy Irons. After a long absence from Québec, she returned to appear in two films directed by Michel Brault; Les noces de papier (1989) and Mon amie Max (1994).
In 1994 Bujold agreed to play the Captain Janeway (originally Elizabeth Janeway, but changed at Kate Mulgrew's request to Kathryn), lead character in the American television series Star Trek: Voyager. However, she dropped out after filming just a few scenes of the first episode, citing the lengthy work schedule for a TV series and her unwillingness to do news interviews. The producers subsequently hired TV veteran Kate Mulgrew.[4]
Bujold lives in Malibu, California with Dennis Hastings, her partner since 1977. Her second son, Emmanuel Bujold, was born in 1980. She continues to work, primarily in small-budget films with independent production companies, and is represented by Merritt Blake of The Blake Agency in Los Angeles.
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