Emmanuelle Riva has passed away

Emmanuelle Riva, the French actress best known for her roles in the films Hiroshima mon amour and Amour, has passed away. She was 89.

Riva died from cancer on 27 January 2017 in Paris.

Riva moved to Paris at the age of 26 in 1953 from her home in rural France to become an actress. She started her acting career on the Paris stage after having trained as a seamstress.

Riva won the BAFTA Award and the César Award for her lead role in Michael Haneke’s Amour (2012) as Anne Laurent, and was nominated for the Academy Award for the same role. She had previously been nominated for a BAFTA Award in 1960 for Hiroshima mon amour, and had won Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival in 1962 for Thérèse Desqueyroux. She also starred in Jean-Pierre Melville’s Léon Morin, Priest (1961). Krzysztof Kieslowski cast her as Juliette Binoche’s mother in his Three Colours: Blue (1993).

While filming Hiroshima mon amour, Riva photographed Hiroshima; a half-century later these photographs were exhibited at the Nikon Salon and were issued in book form in France and Japan.

At 85, she became the oldest ever Best Actress Oscar nominee, in the same year as the youngest, Quvenzhané Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild. They both lost out to Jennifer Lawrence for her role in Silver Linings Playbook.

She never married and had no children.

Another legend has passed away.