Emmanuelle Riva

Emmanuelle Riva, born Paulette Germaine Riva on 24 February 1927 in the small town of Cheniménil, France, emerged from humble beginnings as the daughter of a seamstress and a sign painter to become one of the most respected French actresses of the twentieth and twenty‑first centuries. From an early age she displayed a restless passion for performance, appearing in local theatre productions in Remiremont while simultaneously working as a seamstress to support her family. At twenty‑six she defied her parents’ wishes and moved to Paris, where she enrolled in an acting school after answering a newspaper advertisement, marking the start of a career that would span more than six decades. Her stage debut came in 1954 with George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man, and three years later she entered television with the series Énigmes de l’histoire, paving the way for her breakthrough film role in Alain Resnais’s Hiroshima mon amour (1959), a performance that earned her a BAFTA nomination for Best Foreign Actress. During the 1960s Riva cemented her reputation with memorable parts in Kapò, Léon Morin, Priest and the award‑winning Thérèse Desqueyroux (1962), for which she received the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival. She continued to collaborate with visionary directors, appearing in Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colors: Blue (1993) and Tonie Marshall’s Venus Beauty Institute (1999). At the age of eighty‑five she delivered a career‑defining portrayal of an elderly music teacher in Michael Haneke’s Amour (2012), a role that brought her a BAFTA win, a César Award, and an historic Academy Award nomination, making her the oldest actress ever nominated in the leading‑actress category. Beyond acting, Riva was a published poet, a talented photographer who documented the aftermath of Hiroshima, and an occasional chanteuse, maintaining a vibrant artistic presence until her final stage appearance in 2014. She lived a private life, never marrying and raising no children, and passed away from cancer on 27 January 2017 in Paris, leaving behind a legacy of artistic integrity and emotional depth.