Acting
Marie-José Nat
Marie-José Benhalassa (22 April 1940 – 10 October 2019), known professionally as Marie-José Nat, was a French actress. Among her notable works in cinema were the sequel films Anatomy of a Marriage: My Days with Jean-Marc and Anatomy of a Marriage: My Days with Françoise (1963), directed by André Cayatte. In 1974, she received a Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress for her performance in the film Violins at the Ball.
Benhalassa was born in Bonifacio, Corse-du-Sud, to a Kabyle Berber father, Abdelkader Benhalassa, and a Corsican mother, Vincentine (Biancarelli).
In 1960, she married the actor Roger Dumas and divorced him in 1962. She then married French director Michel Drach with whom she had three sons, David, Julien and Aurélien. They divorced in 1981. She had a relationship of several years with the actor Victor Lanoux. On 30 September 2005 she married the painter, writer and songwriter Serge Rezvani in her third marriage.
She died in Paris of cancer at age 79.
After secondary studies at the Ajaccio high school, Benhalassa entered the cours Simon in Paris.
Benhalassa began her career as a cover-girl and haute-couture model. In 1955, she won a competition from the magazine Femmes d'aujourd'hui which allowed her to become Jean-Claude Pascal's partner in a photo comics entitled L'amour est un songe.
Denys de La Patellière offered her her first major role in 1959 in Rue des prairies alongside Jean Gabin, in which she played his daughter. The following year, she performed in a comedy sketch by René Clair alongside Claude Rich and Yves Robert, and obtained a major role in La Vérité by Henri-Georges Clouzot, playing Brigitte Bardot's rival opposite Sami Frey.
In 1965, she married filmmaker Michel Drach; they had three children and divorced in 1981. She starred in several of her husband's films: Amelie or The Time to Love (1961), Elise, or Real Life (1970) and Les violons du bal (1974), inspired by his childhood experiences during World War II. She was also known for Train of Life (1998), Litan (1982) and The Dacians (1966) with Jean Sorel, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Victor Lanoux and Bernadette Lafont as acting partners.
In 2001, Nat was a member of the jury at the 36th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2001, and at the 24th Cabourg Film Festival in 2010.
She was the very first person to appear on the front cover of Télé 7 Jours in its current name on March 26, 1960.
Nat was awarded Best Actress at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival for her performance in Violins at the Ball, and the film was nominated for the Golden Palm award.
She was made a chevalier of the Légion d'honneur on 31 December 2004, chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite on 18 November 2002 and promoted to the rank of officer on 14 November 2011, commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres as a member of the conseil de l'ordre of which she was a member from 1 March 2001 until April 2012.
Source: Article "Marie-José Nat" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Filmography
Browse movies and TV shows featuring Marie-José Nat
Vivement dimanche
Les Rendez-vous du dimanche
A talk show presented by Michel Drucker
Spécial cinéma
Marcello Mastroianni, Isabelle Adjani, Alain Delon, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen... the biggest stars in cinema...
Numéro un
A French variety show.
Midi trente
Cinépanorama
Dim Dam Dom
Cadet Rousselle
Disobedience
Luca Manzi is a fourteen year old boy when the Northern Italy Republic of Salò is governed by the Fascists. He...
Train of Life
In 1941, the inhabitants of a small Jewish village in Central Europe organize a fake deportation train so that...
6 Calvary Street
Octave Verbrugge, a powerful Belgian building contractor, met Hugo Saint-Laurent, a brilliant French engineer,...
6 Calvary Street
Octave Verbrugge, a powerful Belgian building contractor, met Hugo Saint-Laurent, a brilliant French engineer,...
The Seven Deadly Sins
Seven directors each dramatize one of the seven deadly sins in a short film. In "Anger," a domestic argument ov...
The Truth
As Dominique Marceau is being tried for the murder of Gilbert Tellier, accounts by different witnesses paint a...
Les Gens de Mogador
Terre indigo
Murder in Batz
The murder of a woman in an abandoned house is the first murder this rural French island has had in 100 years....
The Dacians
The great King of Dacia, Decebal (Decebalus), is disposed to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to keep the i...
The Marriage of Figaro
Comedy in five acts by Beaumarchais, filmed by Marcel Bluwal in studio and on location. The cast, in accordance...
Crime and Punishment
Former student Raskolnikov is pushed to murder when struggling to pay the rent on his apartment. When the murde...
Urgent ou à quoi bon exécuter des projets puisque le projet est en lui-même une jouissance suffisante
Gérard Courant applies the Lettrist editing techniques of Isidore Isou to footage of late 70's pop culture. Cou...
Opium and the Stick
In 1950, in Algeria, in a village in Kabylia, Algerian resistance fighters resisted the French occupation army....
The Menace
Josepha is on the verge eighteen living with her drunken washed up actor uncle. She longs for the companionship...
Love and the Frenchwoman
The seven stages in the life of the modern Frenchwomen are disclosed by seven directors in a witty way: 1 - Chi...
Litan
Married couple Jock & Nora are visiting the town of Litan during Litan's Day, with its carnivalesque atmosphere...
Sentimental Education
Frédéric, a shy small-town man, falls in love with Anne, a middle class woman married to Didier, who cheats on...
Elise, or Real Life
In the middle of the Algerian war, Elise, from Bordeaux, “goes” to Paris to join her brother to earn her living...
The Real Bargain
The eccentric Comtesse de Saint-Plâs sells a black Citroën DS to car dealer Paul Souflé. He sells it to the you...
Anatomy of a Marriage: My Days with Françoise
The story of the couple from the very first meeting to break up told from a view of a woman, Francoise. The fil...
Le Nombril du monde
Tunisia, early thirties, the young and plump Bajou, lives modestly with his parents. One day after a flood, his...
Diamond Safari
Raphaël, a former paratrooper, is unable to adapt to the constraints of social life. One day, he becomes the un...
The Bardot mystery
Who hides behind Brigitte Bardot? Extraordinarily photogenic, a tumultuous love life, the ultimate sex symbol f...
Anatomy of a Marriage: My Days with Jean-Marc
The story of the couple from the very first meeting to break up told from a view of a man, Jean-Marc. The film...
Deux mamans pour Noël
After years, Eric decides to track down his mother.
La Colère
Anger seizes a man who finds a fly in his Sunday soup. It spreads through his neighborhood, his city, his count...