Isabelle Adjani
Isabelle Adjani owes her compelling and singularly expressive face to her mixed-bag parentage. Raised by her Algerian-Turkish father and German mother in France, Adjani first appeared in films at the age of fourteen. At seventeen, she was permitted to join the Comédie Française and quickly earned acclaim as the most skilled actress of her generation. Her performance as Victor Hugo’s tortured daughter in François Truffaut’s L’Histoire d’Adèle H. (1975) confirmed her critical plaudits and earned her an Oscar nomination. Although she often appears more at ease in French productions than in international ones (who could have been at ease in the abysmal Ishtar?), Adjani’s performance in James Ivory’s Quartet (1981) won her a Best Actress award at Cannes.
8/5/2014