Biography of Emmanuelle Beart *
Emmanuelle Béart is the daughter of french singer and poet Guy Béart and
Italian-Greek mother, Geneviève Galea. She was born on the 14 August 1965 in St.
Tropez, France. After her parents divorce she was raised by her mother in a
remote mountain village in provence with her three brothers and her sister . As
a teenager, left for Montreal. There she, apparently, met Robert Altman who
encouraged her to become an actress. Although she even took a screen test for
him, nothing came of it. She then attended a drama school in paris before being
cast in Premiers désirs three months later.
She first became well known in Manon des Sources the sequel to Jean de Florette
when she won Best Supporting Actress. Emmanuelle has risen to great
national and international fame as an actress not merely because of her beauty,
she is also capable of deep emotional empathy with the character she is playing.
Like many actresses she spends a long time preparing her characters, in Un Coeur
en Hiver for instance she apparently practiced the violin every day for eighteen
months.
Emmanuelle had a long relationship with Daniel Auteuil, her co-star in several
films. She has a daughter, Nelly (born April 18th 1992), by Auteuil, and a young
son Johan (born March 1996) by her current boyfriend David Moreau (the
half-brother of French actor Patrick Bruel). But she says her children will not
interfere with her acting career: "For the moment, I just put them in a backpack
and bring them along with me. I love the fact that they can travel with me. I
just decided that I would not put my professional life on hold to raise
children. I know that sounds selfish to a lot of people and I don't know if what
I'm doing is the right thing. But that's the way I'm doing it."
One of her greatest irritations is the curiosity of the press: "It's madness.
They follow me. I sue them. That's the deal. I have to admit that it's getting
painful to stay polite... I give everything I have to give on the screen. I feel
I don't owe the public anything else."
Her next film is Jacques Weber's "Don Juan", co-starring Penelope Cruz and
Ariadna Gil.
Steven Kim 1997 -
skim@fas.harvard.edu
* from http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~zctln66/biography.htm