French New Wave star Anna Karina, who served as a muse for influential director Jean-Luc Godard and appeared in eight of his films, has died. She was 79.
France’s culture minister, Franck Reister, announced her death in a tweet, as did her agent, Laurent Balandras, who attributed the cause as cancer.
“Her gaze was the gaze of the New Wave. It will remain so forever,” wrote Reister. “She magnetized the entire world. Today, French cinema is an orphan. It loses one of its legends.”
Karina’s best known films include “The Little Soldier,” “Vivre sa vie,” “Band of Outsiders,” “Pierrot le Fou,” and “Alphaville,” all throughout the 1960s. She starred in “A Woman Is a Woman,” as well, in a performance that earned her the silver bear award for best actress at the Berlin Film Festival in 1961.
Karina also worked with other directors of the New Wave, including Agnes Varda, Jacques Rivette, and Luchino Visconti.
Her work continued through the ’70s, including roles in Christian de Chalonge’s “The Wedding Ring” (1971), Andre Delvaux’s “Rendezvous at Bray” (1971), “The Salzburg Connection” (1972), and Franco Brusati’s “Bread and Chocolate” (1973). She made her directorial debut in 1972 with “Vivre ensemble.”
