Marina Vlady

Posted on by Tony CrawleyCategories:Actors
  1. Brigitte Bardot, Et Dieu crea la femnme (UK-US: And God Created Woman), France, 1956.    Marina Catherine De Poliakoff-Baidarov refused to sign a contract with French producer Raoul Levy’s Iena combine…
  2. Brigitte Bardot, Les bijoutiers du clair de lune, (UK: Heaven Fell That Night; US: The Night  Heaven Fell), France-Italy, 1957.   … thereby missing all the films Levy  made by the four-year-older BB…
  3. Brigitte Bardot, En cas de malheur (UK: Love Is My Professoon), France-Italy, 1957.    … which eventually made Brigitte the world’s biggest star pin-up since Marilyn.
  4. Brigitte Bardot, Babette s’en va-t-en-guerre (Babette Goes To War), France, 1959.   The reason she declinedthe contract was…
  5. Brigitte Bardot, La vérité/The Truth, France-Italy, 1960.   …“because I became the wife, co-star, confidante, mother and factotum of [acteur–realisateur] Robert Hossein.” And yet, in  the ’56-60 period, Marina made the same number  of films as BB: eleven!
  6. Anna Karina, Une femme est une femme, France, 1960.     Leaving Billancopurt studios, Vlady was stopped“by a young man in dark glasses,”asking her tomake his next film, although he had yet to write it!He was the bilious realisateur Jean-Luc Godard and Vlady readily ageeed – impressed by his courage and, his debut,A bout de souffle. He’d alays been“vaguely in love” with Marina, before, during and after her 1955-1959 marriage to actor Robert Hossein. Then, he fell in love with Karina, a Danish model, and, it hasto said, cheaper.  Five years later, he was back with two offers – a film and marriage!  She accepted the former: 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d’elle… and as she refused the latter, he hardly ever spoke to her on the set!
  7. Irina Demick, The Longest Day, 1961.     Both BB and Marina refused the role of the cycling French Resistance girl. They considered it shorter than their jupes. All the roles in  producer Darryl Zanuck’s most star-studded film of all time  (from Connery to Wayne) were shorter than 60s’ skirts.
  8. Michele Mercier, Angélique, Marquise des Anges, 1964.    More keen on new directors and films with some  political purpose, the French star backed away from signing the mirifique contract for what became a five-film series. Her ex-husband, Robert Hossein, played the villain of this French Forever Amber series.  Also in the marquise mix: Brigitte Bardot and her Vadim clones (Catherine Deneuve, Jane Fonda, Annette Strøyberg), Monica Vitti  and Virna Lisi.    Or maybe those clones were Vlady clones, as she had been first choice for  Et Dieu crea la femnme/ And God Created Woman…
  9. Delphine Seyrig, Le lys dans la vallée, France, TV, 1970.     Anotherday, another Godard project. When he planned an updating of the Balzac story in 1966, he wanted Vlady as Henriette de Mortsauf. She preferred going to Japan to join ex-husband Robert Hossein in Atout coeur a Tokyo pour OSS 117.Godard gave up his project to follow her… until moving on to another girl of Russian descent, Anne Wiazemsky, teenage grand-daughter of French literary giant François Mauriac.She made four Godard films.
  10. Delphine Seyrig,Que la fete commence! (US: Let Joy ReignSupreme),France,1974.     La Seyrig was working elsewhere when Vlady gladly joined the second film of her one-time publicist, Bernard Tavernier – as Madame de Parabère, sumptuous mistress of Philip Noiret’s Philippe d’Orleans, the Regent (andlibertine) on Louis XIV’s death.

  11. Isabelle Huppert, Örökség, France-Hungary, 1979.    
    Treachery!  While shooting Ök ketten (Women) in Hungary, in 1976, Vlady and her director Márta Mészáros discussed plots, scribbled scenes, improvised dialogue for other projects together.They were friends since Vlady made Sirokko with Márta’s auteur-lover Miklós Jancsó in 1970. Marina’s next gig was as John Huston’s wife in a Mexican horror. On her return to Paris, she was devastated to read Marta announcing her first film in France with Huppert – and the subject matched the improvs.  They never spoke again.  “Treachery in friendship is often more painful than between lovers,” said Vlady.  However, lovers played their part in the story. Vlady never got on with her macho co-star in Örökség, Jan Nowicki, who was Mészáros’ new lover – and Huppert had a friend in high places at Gaumont, which co-produced the film.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls:  11