Oscar-nominated Amour actress Emmanuelle Riva dead at 89
Emmanuelle Riva, revered French actress
and Oscar nominee for the movie Amour, died Friday at the age of
89.
2013 Oscar nomination
BAFTA Leading Actress Winner in 2013
Emmnauell Riva - Cesar Award 2013 for Best Actress
Riva died at a clinic in Paris after a long
battle with cancer, her agent, Anne Alvares Correa, confirmed to The Associated Press. The
actress was still working last summer when she filmed Alma in
Iceland and performed at the Villa Medici in Rome in November.
Riva is perhaps best known to American
audiences for Amour,
the 2012 film from writer-director Michael Haneke. The unsparing portrait
of an aging couple won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards
in 2013, while Riva was nominated for Best Actress — making her the oldest
woman to earn the distinction at the age of 85.
Riva enjoyed more than 60 years making films,
including Hiroshima
Mon Amour. ‘”On one side there’s Hiroshima, a film about
impossible love,” she recalled. ”And on the other side, in the final stage of my
life, there’s a film about a love that’s possible until death. It’s a wonderful
balance.”
French President Francois Hollande said in a
statement to the AP that
Riva “deeply marked French cinema” and “created intense emotion in all the
roles she played.”
