As a teenager she became famous with the erotic film, but later Christine Boisson broke away from the image. Now she has died at the age of 68.
The French acting world is mourning the loss of one of its most famous personalities: Christine Boisson is dead. The actress died on Monday at the age of 68 in a Paris nursing home as a result of lung disease. Her daughter Juliette Kowski told the New York Times.
Christine Boisson became famous as a teenager when she played the role of Marie-Ange in the 1974 erotic film “Emmanuelle.” The film was a huge success, both in France and internationally – and made the then 17-year-old a sex symbol. “She didn’t like it at all,” her daughter remembers looking back, emphasizing that her mother always tried to shed the image of an erotic actress.
After her early breakthrough, Christine Boisson attended a prestigious Parisian acting school and made a name for herself on the theater stage. She appeared in plays by Shakespeare, Harold Pinter, Tennessee Williams and Eugène Ionescos, among others.
After completing the three-year training, she refused to accept roles in which her appearance was the main focus. She proved her acting talent with her performance in films such as “The Taxi Driver” by Jacques Bral and Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Identification of a Woman”. For her outstanding performance in “Rue barbare” by Gilles Béhat, she was awarded the Romy Schneider Prize in 1984 – the first ever winner.
Her daughter describes this moment as particularly significant: “It was a big step in her career.” Over the course of her 40-year acting career, Boisson appeared in over 50 films. She last appeared in front of the camera for the French television series “Profiling Paris” in 2014.