Delphine Seyrig
Encyclopedia
Delphine Claire Beltiane Seyrig (April 10, 1932, Beirut, Lebanon – October 15, 1990) was a stage and film actress and a film director
.
and Hermine de Saussure, sister of the composer Francis Seyrig. She grew up in Lebanon
and her family moved to New York
when she was 10 years old. When her parents returned to Lebanon in the late 1940s, she was sent to school at the Le Collège-Lycée Cévenol International, a unique secondary school in Haute-Loire
, France, which had been founded by Protestant pacifists and social justice activists ten years earlier in 1938. Seyrig attended Cévenol from 1947 to 1950.
, and at Centre Dramatique de l'Est. She appeared briefly in small roles in TV series Sherlock Holmes
. In 1956 she returned to New York and studied at Actors' Studio. In 1958 she appeared in her first film, Pull My Daisy
. In New York she met the director Alain Resnais
, who asked her to star in his film, L'Année dernière à Marienbad. Her performance brought her international recognition and she moved to Paris. Among her roles of this period is the older married woman in François Truffaut
's Baisers volés
(1968).
During the sixties and seventies, Seyrig worked with such directors as François Truffaut, Luis Buñuel
, Marguerite Duras
, and Fred Zinnemann
, as well as Alain Resnais
. She achieved recognition for both her stage and film work, and was named best actress at the Venice Film Festival
for her role in Resnais' Muriel ou Le temps d'un retour
(1963). She played many diverse roles, and because she was fluent in French, English and German, she appeared in films in all three languages, including a number of Hollywood productions. She may be most widely known for her role as Colette de Montpelier in Zinnemann's 1973 film Day of the Jackal
. In turn, perhaps Seyrig's most demanding role was in Chantal Akerman
's 1976 film Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
, in which she was required to adopt a highly restrained, rigorously minimalistic mode of acting to convey the mindset of the title character.
Throughout her career, Seyrig used her celebrity status to promote women's rights. The most important of the three films she directed was the 1977 Sois belle et tais-toi (Be Pretty and Shut up) that included actresses Shirley MacLaine
, Maria Schneider
, and Jane Fonda
, speaking frankly about the level of sexism they had to deal with in film industry. In 1982 Seyrig was the key member of the group that established the Paris-based "Centre Audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir", which maintains a large archive of women's filmed and recorded work and produces work by and about women. In 1989, Seyrig was given a festival tribute at Créteil International Women's Film Festival
, France.
(b. 1926), who had studied at the École des Beaux-Arts
in Paris. Their son, Duncan Youngerman, born in Paris, 1956, is a renowned musician and composer in both France and the US. Seyrig died in Paris in 1990, aged 58, apparently from lung cancer
(although some sources simply state "lung disease"). She was interred there in Cimetière du Montparnasse.
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
.
Early life
Seyrig was the daughter of archaeologist Henry SeyrigHenry Seyrig
Henri Arnold Seyrig ; , was a French Alsatian Archaeologist numismatist, and historian of Antiquity...
and Hermine de Saussure, sister of the composer Francis Seyrig. She grew up in Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
and her family moved to New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
when she was 10 years old. When her parents returned to Lebanon in the late 1940s, she was sent to school at the Le Collège-Lycée Cévenol International, a unique secondary school in Haute-Loire
Haute-Loire
Haute-Loire is a department in south-central France named after the Loire River.-History:Haute-Loire is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790...
, France, which had been founded by Protestant pacifists and social justice activists ten years earlier in 1938. Seyrig attended Cévenol from 1947 to 1950.
Career
As a young woman, Seyrig studied acting at Comédie de Saint-Étienne, training under Jean DastéJean Dasté
Jean Dasté, born Jean Georges Gustave Dasté, was an actor and theatre director....
, and at Centre Dramatique de l'Est. She appeared briefly in small roles in TV series Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes (1954 TV Series)
The first and only American television series of Sherlock Holmes adventures aired in syndication in the fall of 1954. The 39 half-hour mostly original stories were produced by Sheldon Reynolds and filmed in France by Guild Films, starring Ronald Howard as Holmes and Howard Marion Crawford as Watson...
. In 1956 she returned to New York and studied at Actors' Studio. In 1958 she appeared in her first film, Pull My Daisy
Pull My Daisy
Pull My Daisy is a short film that typifies the Beat Generation. Directed by Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie, Daisy was adapted by Jack Kerouac from the third act of his play, Beat Generation; Kerouac also provided improvised narration...
. In New York she met the director Alain Resnais
Alain Resnais
Alain Resnais is a French film director whose career has extended over more than six decades. After training as a film editor in the mid-1940s, he went on to direct a number of short films which included Nuit et Brouillard , an influential documentary about the Nazi concentration camps.He began...
, who asked her to star in his film, L'Année dernière à Marienbad. Her performance brought her international recognition and she moved to Paris. Among her roles of this period is the older married woman in François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
's Baisers volés
Stolen Kisses
Stolen Kisses is a 1968 French film directed by François Truffaut. It continues the story of the character Antoine Doinel, whom Truffaut had previously depicted in The 400 Blows and the short film Antoine and Colette...
(1968).
During the sixties and seventies, Seyrig worked with such directors as François Truffaut, Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
, Marguerite Duras
Marguerite Duras
Marguerite Donnadieu, better known as Marguerite Duras was a French writer and film director.-Background:...
, and Fred Zinnemann
Fred Zinnemann
Fred Zinnemann was an Austrian-American film director. He won four Academy Awards and directed films like High Noon, From Here to Eternity and A Man for All Seasons.-Life and career:...
, as well as Alain Resnais
Alain Resnais
Alain Resnais is a French film director whose career has extended over more than six decades. After training as a film editor in the mid-1940s, he went on to direct a number of short films which included Nuit et Brouillard , an influential documentary about the Nazi concentration camps.He began...
. She achieved recognition for both her stage and film work, and was named best actress at the Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
for her role in Resnais' Muriel ou Le temps d'un retour
Muriel (film)
Muriel is a 1963 French film directed by Alain Resnais. It was Resnais's third feature film, following Hiroshima mon amour and L'Année dernière à Marienbad , and in common with those films it explores the challenge of integrating a remembered or imagined past with the life of the present...
(1963). She played many diverse roles, and because she was fluent in French, English and German, she appeared in films in all three languages, including a number of Hollywood productions. She may be most widely known for her role as Colette de Montpelier in Zinnemann's 1973 film Day of the Jackal
The Day of the Jackal (film)
The Day of the Jackal is a 1973 Anglo-French film, set in August 1963 and based on the novel of the same name by Frederick Forsyth. Directed by Fred Zinnemann, it stars Edward Fox as the assassin known only as "the Jackal" who is hired to assassinate Charles de Gaulle.- Synopsis :The film opens...
. In turn, perhaps Seyrig's most demanding role was in Chantal Akerman
Chantal Akerman
Chantal Anne Akerman is a Belgian film director, artist, and professor of film at the European Graduate School. Akerman's best-known film, Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles , exemplifies a dedication to the ellipses of conventional narrative cinema.-Early life:Akerman was born to...
's 1976 film Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is a 1975 film by Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman.Upon its release, The New York Times called Jeanne Dielman the "first masterpiece of the feminine in the history of the cinema." Chantal Akerman scholar Ivone Margulies asserts the picture is a...
, in which she was required to adopt a highly restrained, rigorously minimalistic mode of acting to convey the mindset of the title character.
Throughout her career, Seyrig used her celebrity status to promote women's rights. The most important of the three films she directed was the 1977 Sois belle et tais-toi (Be Pretty and Shut up) that included actresses Shirley MacLaine
Shirley MacLaine
Shirley MacLaine is an American film and theater actress, singer, dancer, activist and author, well-known for her beliefs in new age spirituality and reincarnation. She has written a large number of autobiographical works, many dealing with her spiritual beliefs as well as her Hollywood career...
, Maria Schneider
Maria Schneider (actress)
Maria Schneider was a French actress. She was best known for playing Jeanne, opposite Marlon Brando, in the 1972 film Last Tango in Paris.-Career:...
, and Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an...
, speaking frankly about the level of sexism they had to deal with in film industry. In 1982 Seyrig was the key member of the group that established the Paris-based "Centre Audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir", which maintains a large archive of women's filmed and recorded work and produces work by and about women. In 1989, Seyrig was given a festival tribute at Créteil International Women's Film Festival
Créteil International Women's Film Festival
The Créteil International Women's Film Festival is an annual event in Créteil, Paris, France founded by Jackie Buet in 1978 to showcase the directing talents of female filmmakers who, at the time, had difficulty getting their films adequately distributed. The first festival was held in 1979 in Sceaux...
, France.
Private life
Seyrig married (and was later divorced from) American painter Jack YoungermanJack Youngerman
-Biography:Jack Youngerman, was born 1926, St. Louis, MO, moved in Louisville, KY in 1929. He studied art at the University of North Carolina from 1944 to 1946 under a wartime navy training program, and graduated from the University of Missouri in 1947....
(b. 1926), who had studied at the École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...
in Paris. Their son, Duncan Youngerman, born in Paris, 1956, is a renowned musician and composer in both France and the US. Seyrig died in Paris in 1990, aged 58, apparently from lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
(although some sources simply state "lung disease"). She was interred there in Cimetière du Montparnasse.
Filmography (actress)
- Pull My DaisyPull My DaisyPull My Daisy is a short film that typifies the Beat Generation. Directed by Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie, Daisy was adapted by Jack Kerouac from the third act of his play, Beat Generation; Kerouac also provided improvised narration...
(1958) - Last Year in Marienbad (L'année dernière à Marienbad) (1961)
- Muriel ou Le temps d'un retour (1963)
- Who Are You, Polly Magoo? (1966)
- Comédie (1966)
- Accident (1967)
- Stolen KissesStolen KissesStolen Kisses is a 1968 French film directed by François Truffaut. It continues the story of the character Antoine Doinel, whom Truffaut had previously depicted in The 400 Blows and the short film Antoine and Colette...
(1968) - La musicaLa MusicaLa Musica is a chamber music festival located in Sarasota, Florida. Concerts are performed annually throughout the month of April at the Sarasota Opera House. Founded in 1987 by Artistic Directors Bruno Giuranna and Derek Han , the festival draws many of the world's finest performers...
(1968) - Mr. FreedomMr. FreedomMr. Freedom is a 1969 film by American expatriate photographer and filmmaker William Klein. In addition to starring popular French actor Delphine Seyrig, this anti-imperialist satirical farce features cameos by well-known actors Donald Pleasence and Philippe Noiret, as well as musician Serge...
(1969) - La voie lactée (1969)
- El Vientre de la ballena (1969)
- Peau d'ÂnePeau d'ÂnePeau d'Âne is a 1970 French musical film directed by Jacques Demy. It is also known by the English titles Once Upon a Time and The Magic Donkey. The film was adapted by Demy from Donkeyskin, a fairy tale by Charles Perrault about a king who wishes to marry his daughter...
(1970) - Le Lys dans la valléeLe Lys dans la valléeLe Lys dans la Vallée is an 1835 novel about love and society by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac . It concerns the affection — emotionally vibrant but never consummated — between Felix de Vandenesse and Henriette de Mortsauf...
(TV) (1970) - Daughters of DarknessDaughters of DarknessDaughters of Darkness is a 1971 Belgian horror film , directed by Harry Kümel...
(Le Rouge aux Lèvres) (1971) - TartuffeTartuffeTartuffe is a comedy by Molière. It is one of his most famous plays.-History:Molière wrote Tartuffe in 1664...
(TV) (1971) - The Discreet Charm of the BourgeoisieThe Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie-External links:* at Rotten Tomatoes* * Roger Ebert's review of *...
(1972) - Le Journal d'un suicidé (1972)
- Le Boucher, la star et l'orpheline (1973)
- The Day of the JackalThe Day of the Jackal (film)The Day of the Jackal is a 1973 Anglo-French film, set in August 1963 and based on the novel of the same name by Frederick Forsyth. Directed by Fred Zinnemann, it stars Edward Fox as the assassin known only as "the Jackal" who is hired to assassinate Charles de Gaulle.- Synopsis :The film opens...
(1973) - A Doll's HouseA Doll's House (1973 Losey film)A Doll's House is a 1973 Franco-British film directed by Joseph Losey. It went directly to television and premiered in the United States on the American Broadcasting Company...
(1973) - The Black WindmillThe Black WindmillThe Black Windmill is a 1974 British spy thriller directed by Don Siegel and starring Michael Caine, John Vernon, Janet Suzman and Donald Pleasence The screenplay by Leigh Vance is based on Clive Egleton's novel Seven Days to a Killing. The story involves a British secret service agent, John...
(1974) - Diselo con flores (Dites-le avec des fleurs) (1974)
- Le Cri du coeur (1974)
- Le Jardin qui bascule (1974)
- India SongIndia SongIndia Song is a 1975 French drama film directed by Marguerite Duras. India Song stars Delphine Seyrig, Michel Lonsdale, Mathieu Carriere, Claude Mann, Vernon Dobtcheff and Didier Flamand. The film centres on Anne-Marie , the promiscuous wife of the French Vice-Consul in India, and was based on an...
(1975) - Der Letzte Schrei (1975)
- AloïseAloïse (film)Aloïse is a 1975 French drama film directed by Liliane de Kermadec. It was entered into the 1975 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Isabelle Huppert - Aloïse jeune / Aloïse as a child* Delphine Seyrig - Aloïse adulte / Aloïse as an adult...
(1975) - Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 BruxellesJeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 BruxellesJeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is a 1975 film by Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman.Upon its release, The New York Times called Jeanne Dielman the "first masterpiece of the feminine in the history of the cinema." Chantal Akerman scholar Ivone Margulies asserts the picture is a...
(1976) - Caro MicheleCaro MicheleCaro Michele is a 1976 Italian comedy film directed by Mario Monicelli. It was entered into the 26th Berlin International Film Festival, where Monicelli won the Silver Bear for Best Director.-Cast:* Mariangela Melato as Mara Castorelli...
(1976) - Scum Manifesto (1976)
- Baxter, Vera Baxter (1977)
- Son nom de Venise dans Calcutta désertSon nom de Venise dans Calcutta désertSon nom de Venise dans Calcutta désert is a French film directed by Marguerite Duras in 1976. Calcutta in Duras's depiction is a place full of hidden sorrow under a veil of joy and charm...
(1976) - Je t'aime, tu danses (1977)
- Repérages (1977)
- Utkozben (1979)
- Chère inconnue (1980)
- Le Chemin perdu (1980)
- Le Petit Pommier (TV) (1981)
- The Man of DestinyThe Man of DestinyThe Man of Destiny is an 1897 play by George Bernard Shaw. It was published as a part of Plays Pleasant, which also included Arms and the Man, Candida and You Never Can Tell. Shaw titled the volume Plays Pleasant in order to contrast it with his first book of plays, Plays Unpleasant....
(TV) (1981) - Freak OrlandoFreak OrlandoFreak Orlando is a 1981 comedy film directed by Ulrike Ottinger and starring Magdalena Montezuma.-Cast:* Magdalena Montezuma - Orlando, als Pilger, Orlando Zyldopa, Orlando Orlanda, Orlando Capricho...* Delphine Seyrig .....
(1981) - Le Grain de sable (1983)
- Dorian Gray im Spiegel der Boulevardpresse (1984)
- Grosse (1985)
- Les Étonnements d'un couple moderne (TV) (1985)
- Golden Eighties (1986)
- Letters Home (1986)
- Seven Women, Seven Sins (1987)
- Johanna D'Arc of Mongolia (1989)
- Une saison de feuilles (TV) (1989)
- La Pagaille (1990)
Filmography (director)
- Sois belle et tais-toi (1981)
- Scum Manifesto (1976)
- Maso et Miso vont en bateau (1975)