Audry, Jacqueline

(1908-1977)

   Director and screenwriter. One of the early female directors, Jacqueline Audry got her start writing screenplays and assisting for the likes of Jean Delannoy and Max Ophuls. Her sister Colette was a playwright who also occasionally wrote screenplays (most notably for René Clement's 1943 La Bataille du rail), and her husband, Pierre Laroche, was a screen-writer. Audry made her directorial debut in 1943 and directed her first feature film, Les Malheurs de Sophie, in 1945. She made eighteen films between 1945 and 1972, the most notable of which were either literary adaptations or had literary connections. These films included Gigi (1948), Minne, l'Ingénue libertine (1950), andMitsou (1956), all adaptations of novels by Colette, Huis Clos (1954), an adaptation of the play by Sartre, and La Garçonne (1957), based on a controversial novel. Olivia (1951), starring Edwige Feuillère and Simone Simon, Le Secret du Chevalier d'Éon (1959), starring Bernard Blier, and Les Fruits amers (1967), starring Emmanuelle Riva and based on her sister's play Soledad, are also noteworthy. For the most part, Audry's films reflect the classic French cinema tradition de qualité, with fairly classic narration, editing, and mise-en-scène. Her films often centered around strong female characters or female leads that challenged conventional ideas of women's roles or social rules in general.

   Historical Dictionary of French Cinema by Dayna Oscherwitz & Mary Ellen Higgins