BEGINNINGS
Emmanuelle Béart was born Emmanuelle Béhart-Hasson on August 14, 1963, in Saint-Tropez, on the French Riviera. She lived with her mother Geneviève Galéa (a homemaker and former model), brothers, and sister on a farm in Gassin, not far from Saint-Tropez in Provence (southern France) because her father, French singer and poet Guy Béart, didn't want the children to be affected by the glamour world of Paris. When Emmanuelle was 13, she saw Romy Schneider in the movie Mado (1976). From that time on, she wanted to be an actress. In Emmanuelle's teens, her parents sent her to Montreal, Quebec, Canada, for four years, so she could learn English. There, she was engaged for a Robert Altman movie that was never made. After returning to France, she took drama classes and got her first TV role, in Raison perdue (1984) (TV). David Hamilton, the photographer/director, was impressed by her beauty and gave her a role in Premiers désirs (1984). She met her spouse-to-be, Daniel Auteuil, while making Amour en douce, L' (1985). The film that made her famous in France was Manon des sources (1986), in which she played the role of a blonde shepherd dancing nude in the fields. Director Tom McLoughlin chose her out of 5,000 candidates for her first Hollywood picture, Date with an Angel (1987). Emmanuelle is a very sensitive and a perfectionist. For the part of Camille in the film Un coeur en hiver (1992), she took violin lessons for a whole year. Her biggest success was as a nude model in the art film Belle noiseuse, La (1991), which starred Michel Piccoli and was directed by Jacques Rivette.
ACTIVISM
Béart is also known for her social activism. She is an ambassador for UNICEF, and has made news for her opposition to France's anti-immigration legislation. In 1997, she made headlines when she got arrested in Paris in 1997 for chaining herself to the railings of a Paris church in defense of the rights of black immigrant workers. They can show compassion in war zones and petition Jacques Chirac, as Béart did recently, to ban headscarves and other religious symbols in schools.
BEAUTY
"Sometimes, I have the feeling," she says, with a charming pout, "that when you are 20 years old and people say, 'Oh, she's beautiful,' it sticks to you. Am I beautiful? It depends on the day, it depends on my life. Beauty is not something you can count on. Usually, when people say you are beautiful, it is when there is a harmony between the inside and the outside. When you are happy and in love and when you have children, then maybe you are beautiful."
For, although it is possible to enhance or wreck one's looks, beauty is mostly a genetic accident. It is not, she admits, an aquis (achievement), breaking into French to find the mot juste while otherwise managing admirably in the English she acquired as a 15-year-old au pair in Montreal. Her raw material was provided by her mother, Genevieve, a Greek/Italian model, and father, Guy, a Swiss/Russian heart-throb folk singer.
While others struggle to make the most of their assets, she has fought to prevent hers overshadowing her wish to be taken seriously. In that endeavour, a remark made by Claude Chabrol, 11 years ago, when she starred in his film L'Enfer, has dogged her. "She has the face of a virgin and the body of a wh*re," he said, and nobody can forget it. She sighs. "In France, the public has this image of me as very sexual. I am always fighting against that. This is just one of the faces of me. I want to use all my powers, open all the windows, all the doors."
ELLE
In 2003, Béart, aged 40, appeared nude on the front cover of French magazine Elle and as of 2007, it is still the magazine's biggest-selling issue ever. The cover showed her walking out of the ocean and, inside, was shown romping in the shallows with a scantily clad youth. Men who had hitherto shown little interest in women's magazines rushed to buy these collectors' items and all 515,000 copies of the magazine sold within days.
She can explain those photos. "It was 5am. We had just arrived in Mauritius. I told the photographer I needed some time alone. I just wanted to swim. There was nobody about, so I took off my clothes and did not expect any photos."
Naturally, the photographer could not resist the sight of Venus emerging from the waves. Back in Paris, she was shown the pictures and asked if she liked them. "I don't like them, I love them," she replied and agreed to publication for high-minded reasons. "Magazines keep showing us very skinny models of 15 or 16. I am 38, a mother and a woman and I thought, `Why not?' For once, let's not have someone who is very skinny, very young. Let's make things move."
I really miss her days as a long-haired brunette.
. She looks amazing
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Love those sleeves on her!
