Marie-France Pisier (10 May 1944 – 24 April 2011) was a French actress, screenwriter, and director.
She was born in French Indochina, her father was a local governor and her mother was a feminist militant. She was most famous for appearing in films of the French New Wave, most notably in the series The Adventures of Antoine Doinel directed by François Truffaut as Colette, the First Love of the eponymous character. She also worked with the likes of Luis Buñuel, Jacques Demy, André Téchiné, Roger Vadim, Jacques Rivette, Raoul Ruiz and Maïwenn. She earned the César Award for Best Supporting Actress twice (1976 and 1977), she wrote four films and she directed two of them.
She was found dead at the bottom of her house's swimming pool in April 2011 in mysterious circumstances (her head was stuck in a metal chair). Neither murder nor accident nor suicide have been ruled out, and her death might have been connected to a pedophilia/incest case incriminating her brother-in-law, politologist Olivier Duhamel, which she knew about and wanted to expose. The Duhamel case blew up in public in 2021, ten years after her death.
Selected filmography:
- The Adventures of Antoine Doinel as Colette Tazzi
- Antoine and Colette (1962)
- Stolen Kisses (1968)
- Love on the Run (1979)
- Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974) as Sophie
- The Brontë Sisters (1979) as Charlotte Brontë
- Ace of Aces (1982) as Gabrielle "Gaby" Delcourt
- The Magic Mountain (1982) as Claudia Chauchat
- Parking (1985) as Claude Perséphone
Tropes & Trivia about her works:
- Production Posse: She worked several times with directors Raoul Ruiz and André Téchiné.
