Roger Vadim

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Roger Vadim [ ʀɔˈʒe vaˈdim ]; actually Roger Vladimir Plemiannikov (born  January 26, 1928 in Paris ; † February 11, 2000 there ), was a French film director , screenwriter and actor .

Life

childhood

Roger Vadim grew up in Alexandria. His father, Igor Nikolayevich Plemiannikow, a Russian aristocrat, was in French service there. The mother came from Provence . After the father's death - he died of a heart attack in 1937 at the age of only 34 - the family, including Vadim's sister Hélène , moved to the French Alps , where the mother ran a hostel. The widow married the English-born city planner and architect Gerald Manning , an employee of Le Corbusier . He was involved in the resistance during World War II , hiding communists and Jews and smuggling goods across the nearby Swiss border. Stepson Roger lost his best friend in a massacre by the SS who set fire to a barn and processed the traumatic experiences in 1983 in the novel The Hungry Angel .

youth

After the war, Vadim moved to Paris, worked for three years in the Charles Dullin Theater as an actor and studied journalism , albeit without a degree. Through the mediation of the writer André Gide , he met the director Marc Allégret , who employed him as an assistant at the Sarah Bernhardt theater and employed him as a supporting actor. Vadim was assistant director in the production of Allégret's unsuccessful English-language film Blanche Fury (Eng. Title Unruhiges Blut , 1948). Vadim also worked as a photo journalist for Paris-Match . During this time he met Brigitte Bardot , then 15 years old , whom he married on December 20, 1952 , immediately after she was of legal age.

Beginnings as a screenwriter

In the Allégret team, Vadim was one of several authors on productions such as the French-British coproduction The Naked Heart (German: The dreaming heart , 1950) with Michèle Morgan , Blackmailed (German: crime without guilt , 1951) with Dirk Bogarde and Le demoiselle et son revenant (1952). He wrote the book and spoke the text for the documentary Le gouffre de la Pierre Saint-Marti (1953), and was assistant director for Allegret's Julietta (1953), a popular romance with Jean Marais , Dany Robin and Jeanne Moreau , and was assistant director for Loves of Three Queens (German women , 1954, with Hedy Lamarr ) again author.

First success with Brigitte Bardot

For the film School for Love (dt. Frost on young flowers was occupied, 1953), in which Brigitte Bardot, Vadim wrote the screenplay with Allégret after a literary model by Vicki Baum . Despite the lurid title, the project turned out to be a failure. The next film with Bardot, however, Mam'selle Striptease (Eng. The daisy is defoliated , 1956) turned out to be a blockbuster, similar to the film musical Cette sacrée gamine (Eng. Parisian air , 1956), which Vadim made so well known, that he got his first chance as a director. He made the best of it: Et Dieu créa la Femme (Eng. And always lures the woman , 1956) established the world fame of the Bardot and also contributed to the prominence of Curd Jürgens . "I did not invent the Bardot, I just helped it to blossom," Vadim wrote later in his memoirs, half of which were for her. At first, Vadim remained connected to Allégret despite other directorial work such as Les Bijoutiers du clair de lune ( In their eyes there is always night , 1958, also with Bardot and Stephen Boyd) and wrote for Be Beautiful But Shut Up ( Eng and shut up , 1958). On December 6, 1957, Vadim divorced Bardot.

Annette Stroyberg

During the shooting of his film Les liaisons dangereuses (Eng. Dangerous Liaisons ) (1959), the last film with Gérard Philipe that the Washington Post considered Vadim's best, he met the Danish model Annette Stroyberg, who made his second wife became. Stroyberg also took part in the vampire film Et mourir de plaisir (dt. And to die from lust , 1960). Vadim and Stroyberg separated again on March 14, 1961, but had a daughter (Nathalie). The director worked briefly again with Bardot for the popular comedy La Bride sur le cou (dt. Trained in freedom , 1961).

Catherine Deneuve

The very young Catherine Deneuve, with whom Vadim began a relationship, appeared in a chapter of Allégret's episode film Les Parisiennes (English: Parisian Women , 1962). He promoted and staged her, got upset about her alleged “shoe craze” and got her roles in Et Satan conduit le bal (German: In the hand of a strong man , 1962) and Le Vice et la Vertu (German: vice and virtue , 1963 ). As a result, Vadim had great success again with a Bardot film Le repos du guerrier (Eng. The pillow , 1962), while Château en Suède (Eng. A castle in Sweden , 1963) flopped with Monica Vitti .

Jane Fonda

On August 14, 1965 , Jane Fonda became Vadim's third wife at an absurd ceremony in Las Vegas at which violinists in skin-tight costumes performed. He had previously cast her for the first time in the erotic film La Ronde (Ger. Der Reigen , 1964) and learned to love it. In general, Vadim, according to his own admission, considered sex to be his greatest “source of inspiration” and named his memoirs after the most prominent wives: Bardot, Deneuve, Fonda (1986). Shortly after the wedding with Fonda, Vadim filmed La curée (Eng. Die Beute , 1966) based on a template by Emile Zola , who in turn had modernized the ancient Phaedra myth. While filming was still in progress, Fonda received an offer from Italian film producer Dino De Laurentiis to play the leading role in the comic book version Barbarella , a directing project by Vadim who promised his wife that this would make her the "Alice in Wonderland" of the future. "Yes The shooting in Cinecittà in Rome turned out to be very stressful, Vadim began to drink and the marriage began to run down shortly afterwards. Vadim lived temporarily in the USA, where he shot Pretty Maids All in a Row for MGM based on a script by Gene Roddenberry ( dt. One by one , 1971), according to critics, the last under Vadims 26 films, which was relevant artistically. on 16th January 1973 Vadim and Fonda were divorced. from the relationship emerged daughter Vanessa.

Return to France, late years

Shortly after his separation from Fonda and his return to France, Vadim worked again with Bardot for their last film, Don Juan ou Si Don Juan était une femme ... ( Don Juan , 1973). Financially it was a failure, as were other productions of the 1970s, consistently shallow erotic films, as they were in fashion at the time, etc. a. with Sylvia Kristel and Nathalie Delon . Vadim also worked for television during this period. A whole series of film and television projects in the early 1980s, some of which Vadim realized in the United States, including the soft porn Jeux de Nuit ( Night Games , 1980) and the TV series Deadly Nightmares (1986) also provided for little fuss. A remake of And Eternally Lures Woman with Rebecca De Mornay (1988) also found no response. Amour Fou followed in 1993 , with his fifth and last wife, Marie-Christine Barrault, whom he married on December 21, 1990, played. She also appeared in the multi-part TV series La Nouvelle tribu (1996) and its sequel Un coup de baguette magique (1997), two productions in which Vadim was involved as a writer and director.

Personal

In addition to Bardot, Stroyberg, Fonda and Barrault, the industrialist heiress (cast iron and weapons from Schneider-Creusot) Catherine Schneider was married to Vadim (marriage on December 13, 1975, divorce on June 10, 1977, son Vania), he was also alive At times in California with the screenwriter Ann Biderman, with whom he was only engaged (1984). The US actress Cindy Pickett is said to have been one of the lovers . At the age of 16, Vadim claims to have lost his “innocence” on a summer vacation in Normandy, a few days before the Allies invaded the area, who were already bombing the area. Therefore, according to Vadim, "an earthquake" occurred under his feet during the first sex, the exact cause of which he allegedly only realized later. He considered jealousy to be “bourgeois” throughout his life.

Awards

Roger Vadim and his protagonists always aroused public interest. But neither he nor his muses received credit for his films. Neither traces of the past , which ran in the competition at the Berlinale , nor Die Beute (in Venice ) was awarded a prize. For the remake And God Created Woman was Rebecca De Mornay for a Golden Raspberry nomination.

Filmography (selection)

As a director

  • 1956: ... and women always beckon (Et Dieu ... créa la femme)
  • 1957: Traces in the past (Sait-on jamais ...)
  • 1958: It's always night in their eyes (Les Bijoutiers du clair de lune)
  • 1959: Dangerous Liaisons (Les Liaisons dangereuses)
  • 1960: ... and dying of lust (Et mourir de plaisir)
  • 1961: trained in freedom (La Bride sur le cou)
  • 1962: The Seven Deadly Sins (Les Sept péchés capitaux)
  • 1962: The pillow of rest (Le Repos du guerrier)
  • 1963: Vice and virtue (Le Vice et la vertu)
  • 1963: A castle in Sweden (Château en Suède)
  • 1964: The round dance
  • 1966: The Booty (La Curée)
  • 1968: Barbarella
  • 1968: Metzengerstein , episode in Histoires extraordinaires
  • 1971: One after the other (Pretty Maids All in a Row)
  • 1972: Don Juan 73
  • 1974: A Wild Life (La Jeune fille assassinée)
  • 1976: The Faithful Woman (Une femme fidèle)
  • 1983: Surprise Party
  • 1988: Adams kesse Rippe (And God Created Woman)
  • 1993: A Crazy Love (Amour fou)

As an actor

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b Tim Pullein: Roger Vadim The Guardian, February 12, 2000, accessed March 19, 2018.
  2. Roger Vadim: Bardot, Deneuve, Fonda. Roger Vadim's life with Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve, and Jane Fonda , New York 1986, p. 19.
  3. a b c d Grace Lichtenstein: Roger Vadim: An Eye for the Ladies The Washington Post, April 13, 1986, accessed March 19, 2018.
  4. a b Patricia Bosworth : How fear turned Jane Fonda into a sex addict Daily Mail Online, September 2, 2011, accessed March 19, 2018.