Jacques Demy

Jacques Demy — Biography

Jacques Demy was born on 5 June 1931 in Pontchâteau; after working with animator Paul Grimault and filmmaker Georges Rouquier, he made his directing debut with Lola in 1961, starring Anouk Aimée. Though associated with the French New Wave, his style drew on wide-ranging sources from classic Hollywood musicals to fairy tales, jazz and opera, with characters recurring across his films and scores usually written by Michel Legrand. His 1964 film Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, starring Catherine Deneuve, took the top prize at Cannes, also earned the Louis Delluc award, and picked up four Oscar nominations. After 1967's Les Demoiselles de Rochefort, a Columbia offer took him to Los Angeles in 1968 to make Model Shop; the fairy-tale adaptation Peau d'âne and the drama Une chambre en ville round out his major work. He married fellow director Agnès Varda in 1962, had a son, Mathieu Demy, and adopted Varda's daughter Rosalie. He died in Paris on 27 October 1990; in 2014 the Criterion Collection released a restored box set of his films.