Stephane Audran (Actor)

Stephane Audran in Babette's gastebud. (Photo: MGM)

This delicately beautiful blonde French actress became an star, gaining prominence with starring roles in films directed by her second husband, Claude Chabrol. Born as Colette Suzanne Dacheville, she adapted her stage name of Stephane Audran in the mid-1950s. A doctor's daughter, she was born and raised in Versailles and began her acting career onstage and in a short film directed by Eric Rohmer. Audran entered features in 1957 with a small role in Herve Bromberger's gangster-themed "La Bonne tisane/Good Medicine/Kill or Cure". After being introduced to Chabrol by Gerard Blain and Jean-Claude Brialy, the actress asked for a part in the director's next film; the result was a supporting role in "Les Cousins" (1959) but it marked the beginning of a their on and off screen relationships. Even after their marriage ended, the actress and the director continued to work together.

Chabrol helped to shape the onscreen persona of Audran as that of a coolly elegant middle-class Frenchwoman. Bringing a combination of old-fashioned movie star glamour and a detached sophistication bolstered by a strong acting technique, the actress shone in a number of Chabrol films ranging from "Les Bonne femmes/The Girls" (1960) to "The Champagne Murders/Le Scandale" (1966). "Les Biches/The Does" (1967), in which Audran starred as a lesbian opposite her first husband Jean-Louis Trintignant, brought her the Best Actress Award at the Berlin Film Festival. Other notable Chabrol films include "Le Boucher/The Butcher" (1969), "Juste avant la nuit/Just Before Nightfall" (1971), "Violette Noziere" (1977) and "The Blood of Others" (1984). Audran also appeared in several notable features directed by others, including two which won Oscars as Best Foreign Film: Luis Bunuel's surrealistic comedy "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" (1972) and Gabriel Axel's well-crafted "Babette's Gastebud/Babette's Feast" (1988). Her English-language films have, however, more disappointing, but she was well-cast as Lord Marchmain's knowing mistress in the 1982 TV adaptation of "Brideshead Revisited".