Tributes paid to veteran French actress Emmanuelle Riva

Tributes have been paid to Emmanuelle Riva, the veteran French actress who has died of cancer aged 89.

French president Francois Hollande said the actress “created intense emotion in all of the roles she embodied”.

Born in 1927, Riva found worldwide fame when Alain Resnais cast her in his 1959 romance Hiroshima Mon Amour.

Fifty-four years later, she became the oldest ever nominee for the best actress Oscar when she was shortlisted for her role in Michael Haneke’s Amour.

The film cast her and JeanLouis Trintignant as an octogenarian Parisian couple whose life together is rocked when her health suddenly declines.

Though Riva lost out to Jennifer Lawrence, she received numerous other accolades and enjoyed a late-career revival as a consequence.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts of Sciences tweeted a tribute on Saturday and thanked the actress “for all that you’ve given us”.

Riva’s 60-year career spanned film, TV, and theatre, which saw her work with a number of celebrated European directors.

They included Poland’s Krzysztof Kieslowski, who cast her as Juliette Binoche’s mother in Blue - the second instalment of his famous Three Colours trilogy.

Riva, who never married and had no children, received a Bafta, a Cesar and a European Film Award for Amour, named after the French word for love.

“A great and sublime actress has left us,” said Alain Terzian, president of the body that presents the Cesar film awards.

According to her agent, Anne Alvares Correa, the actress died in Paris on Friday “after a long illness”. She “was active until the end”.