RIP Geneviève Page

 

Death of Geneviève Page, theatre glory, at the age of 97

Le Figaro

By Nathalie Simon

February 14, 2025

 

Having studied at the Comédie-Française, the actress, who has died at the age of 97, had played in Fanfan la Tulipe and Belle de jour.

Geneviève Page, a theater star who also played a luxury brothel owner who recruited Catherine Deneuve in Belle de jour in 1967, died on Friday in Paris at the age of 97, her granddaughter, actress Zoé Guillemaud, told AFP. The actress, who left her mark on classical theater and cinema in her fifty-year career, died at her home, the same source said.

The daughter of a gallery owner, Geneviève Page ended her career in the theatre in 2011 with Racine's Britannicus, under the direction of Michel Fau, at the Figeac Theatre Festival. "She told me that she had played Claudel's 'Le Soulier de satin' and then 'Le Canard à l'orange' with Jean Poiret," said the director. "I had a lot of fun and I received a lot," said the actress with beautiful, mischievous green eyes.

Born Geneviève Anne Marguerite Bonjean, on December 13, 1927, in the16th arrondissement of Paris, married to Jean-Claude Bujard, her godfather was Christian Dior. After her baccalaureate, like her father, who was passionate about art and literature, she entered the École du Louvre.

More theatre than cinema

It was at the age of 26, in 1953, while filming in Open Letter to a Husband, a comedy by Alex Joffé with Robert Lamoureux, that she decided to become an actress. The audience applauded her during the screening of the film: “I had the impression that I had become an actress at that second.” She then joined the Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Paris, then the Comédie-Française and worked with the Jean-Louis Barrault company, which directed her in Angelo, tyrant of Padua by Victor Hugo. Thanks to the man who would become her friend, Gérard Philip, Geneviève Page entered the TNP, rubbed shoulders with Jean Vilar and played opposite Gérard Philip in Lorenzaccio and Les Caprices de Marianne.

The actress plays great heroines, Doña Proueze (The Satin Shoe) or Hermione (Andromache). She is also in Twelfth Night, a “drama” by Claude Barma. Her performance in The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, at the Théâtre National de Chaillot in 1980, earned her the Prize for Best Actress from the Critics’ Union.

“The theatre begins and ends, as Claudel says. We enter the stage at half-past 8 and at a quarter to midnight, we are dead in frightful torments!”

Geneviève Page preferred the theatre to the cinema, but the latter could not do without her haughty physique. "Coitus interruptus" was not her "thing", she said. "Theatre begins and ends, as Claudel says. You enter the stage at a quarter to eight and at a quarter to midnight, you are dead in terrible torments!"

A wide filmography

This did not prevent her from appearing in many films, in France and the United States, where she also distinguished herself in the theatre in Samuel Taylor's The Happy Time with Laurence Olivier. On screen, she distinguished herself for the first time in a detective story No Pity for Women, by Christian Stengel, with Simone Renant, Michel Auclair and Marcel Herrand (1951). Then, she was a sacred Marquise de Pompadour in Fanfan la Tulipe, by the "very courteous" Christian-Jaque, where she reunited with Gérard Philip. "When you see each other with Gina Lollobrigida, you fall into each other's arms, whereas at the time I didn't see much of her."

Luis Buñuel had asked me to kiss her on the mouth without telling her. I had told her that if she slapped me, I would give her a slap

During the filming of Sheldon Reynols' Foreign Intrigue, Robert Mitchum "saved her life" by preventing her from getting a spotlight on her head. "He liked to drink pastis," she laughed. In Mayerling, she is Ava Gardner's partner. In Luis Buñuel's Belle de jour, she jubilantly plays Madame Anaïs, a pimp mother (1967). "We're going to find you a very simple, very flirtatious name," she tells the innocent Catherine Deneuve. "Luis Buñuel asked me to kiss him on the mouth without telling her. I told her that if she slapped me, I would give her back." (Le Point, July 2013).

Geneviève Page is also in Look for the Woman, Michel Strogoff, by Carmine Gallone, nicknamed the Commander, with Curd Jürgens who was afraid of horses. Then in Un amour de poche by Pierre Kast, alongside Jean Marais and a newcomer Jean-Claude Brialy: "I called my agents to tell them, 'Take it right away.' In George Cukor's Farewell Ball (1960), Dirk Bogarde is adorable: "It was a dream, he was rehearsing with you... He was cooking us a turkey with pineapple by his swimming pool."

The actress distinguished herself in a blockbuster that would win three Oscars: Anthony Mann's El Cid, starring Sophie Loren, who became her son's godmother, and Charlton Heston, who had remained close to him. "Don't scream or I'll become frigid," Geneviève Page warns the filmmaker. One of her fondest memories was her role as Gabrielle Valladon, the "villain" in Billy Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970).

Open, she did not rule out any roles. She was a nymphomaniac widow in Buffet Froid (1979). There she met Bernard Blier with whom she had played a play by Marcel Achard. The actor played pranks on her with the complicity of Gérard Depardieu and Jean Carmet. As soon as she could, Geneviève Page returned to the stage. In 1991, the Spanish director Lluis Pasqual directed her in Le Balcon by Jean Genet at the Odéon. She won the Prix Plaisir du théâtre in 1997 for Colombe by Jean Anouilh directed by Michel Fagadau in which she played Madame Alexandra. At the same time, she taught her art.

PAGE, Geneviève (Geneviève Anne Marguerite Bronjean)

Born: 12/13/1927, Paris, Île-de-France, France

Died: 2/14/2025, Paris, Île-de-France, France

 

Geneviève Page’s western – actress:

A Talent for Loving – 1973 (Lady Delphine Butler)