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Emmanuelle Riva

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Emmanuelle Riva was a celebrated French actress of stage and screen.

Emmanuelle Riva Cannes 2012
Emmanuelle Riva Cannes 2012

Her career spanned many decades and included significant work in theater and television. She was most famous for her powerful roles in major international films. These performances earned her many prestigious awards and nominations worldwide. Riva was a versatile artist who also practiced photography and poetry. Her life was deeply connected to the cultural heart of Paris.

Her path to acting required significant determination and a move to the city. Riva was born Paulette Germaine Riva in 1927 in Cheniménil, France. Her father was a sign painter and her mother was a seamstress. Although she loved acting as a child in Remiremont, she worked as a seamstress for years. After seeing a newspaper advertisement, she applied to an acting school in Paris. She moved to Paris at age 26 to pursue her dream despite her family's objections. She performed her first stage role in 1954 in a production of Arms and the Man. Her television debut followed in 1957 in the series Énigmes de l'histoire.

Throughout her career, Riva mastered many different types of performances. She worked extensively in French theater, including a 2001 performance in Medea at the Festival d'Avignon. In 2014, she returned to the Paris stage in the play Savannah Bay. On screen, she moved between intense dramas and various film genres. She appeared in films like Kapò, Léon Morin, Priest, and Three Colors: Blue. These roles required her to portray a wide range of human experiences and emotions.

Riva's film career reached major milestones during the mid-20th century. In 1959, she starred in the film Hiroshima mon amour, directed by Alain Resnais. In this film, she played a French actress having an affair with a Japanese architect. This role earned her a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Foreign Actress in 1960. In 1962, she won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice International Film Festival. This honor was for her performance in the film Thérèse Desqueyroux.

Later in her life, Riva achieved a historic level of recognition for her craft. She starred in the 2012 film Amour, directed by Michael Haneke. She played an elderly music teacher suffering from debilitating strokes. For this role, she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress and the César Award. She was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. At age 85, she became the oldest person ever nominated for Best Actress. She was only surpassed in age by Gloria Stuart, who was 87 during her Titanic nomination.

Beyond the film set, Riva was a woman of many creative interests. While filming in Japan, she took several photographs of Hiroshima. These images were exhibited at the Nikon Salon fifty years later. The photographs were also published in books in both France and Japan. Additionally, Riva was a published poet, showing her love for the written word. She lived a private life in a fourth-floor walk-up apartment in the Latin Quarter of Paris for over fifty years.

Emmanuelle Riva passed away from cancer on 27 January 2017 in Paris. She was just four weeks shy of her 90th birthday. A memorial service was held for her at the Saint-Germain de Charonne church. She was eventually laid to rest in the Charonne cemetery.

Cimeti%C3%A8re de Charonne - Riva 01
Cimeti%C3%A8re de Charonne - Riva 01

Her legacy remains through her many films and her impact on the art of acting.

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File:Emmanuelle Riva Cannes 2012.jpg
Emmanuelle Riva Cannes 2012.jpg
File:Cimeti%C3%A8re_de_Charonne_-_Riva_01.jpg
Cimeti%C3%A8re_de_Charonne_-_Riva_01.jpg
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