French star ‘ sexiest in the world’
Juliette Greco French singer and actress BORN FEBRUARY 7, 1927 – DIED SEPTEMBER 23, 2020, AGED 93
JULIETTE Greco began her career as a French singer but became a major international film star. Sometimes described as the sexiest woman in the world, men vied for her attention. Charles Aznavour wrote songs for her and film producer Darryl F Zanuck was one of many Hollywood figures smitten with her spellbinding allure.
Philosopher Jean- Paul Sartre was infatuated with her singing style and penned many lyrics for her. “Greco has a million poems in her voice,” he once said.
In French films she was an instant star, often playing the femme fatale, but breaking into Hollywood took a little longer.
The Sun Also Rises in 1957, based on Ernest Hemingway’s book of the same name, was the perfect springboard for Greco. Although she had only a small part, she was mixing with the stellar cast including Ava Gardner, Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power.
Zanuck, who had produced the movie, pushed for her to get parts in other films, including Crack In The Mirror, where she starred alongside Orson Welles, and The Big Gamble. Although she had a long relationship with Zanuck they never married.
Greco’s own life story reads like a Hollywood script. Born in Montpellier, her Corsican father Gerard was a police officer.
However in her early years her mother, also Juliette, disappeared off the scene and Greco and her older sister Charlotte were brought up by her grandparents in Bordeaux. Their mum later took both girls to live with her in Paris.
During the Second World War Greco’s mother fought with the resistance. In 1943 the Gestapo was on her tail and arrested both her daughters in Paris.
The girls were subject to questioning before being sent to a women’s prison at Fresnes. Greco wrote later of the experience, saying: “I will never forgive them. I know that I myself will fight until the last day of my life against oppression and the denial of the only treasure worth preserving: the right to live as we choose.”
After the war she met Sartre, Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir. Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis fell for her in 1949 but he said he did not want to take the relationship further. In 1953 she married actor Philippe Lemaire and had a daughter Laurence-Marie, who died in 2016. In 1966 she married actor and director Michel Piccoli. Her third and last marriage was to pianist Gerard Jouannest, who died in 2018.