French actress Marina Vlady, a celebrated star who appeared in more than 80 films and won a major acting prize at the Cannes Film Festival, has died at the age of 88.Vlady died Thursday at home, surrounded by her family and beloved animals, her children confirmed to AFP. In a statement, they described her life as “long and beautiful,” saying she had lived it fully.Over the course of her remarkable career, Vlady worked alongside some of the biggest names in international cinema, including French New Wave filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard and Hollywood icon Orson Welles.
Her career reached a major milestone in 1963, when she won the Best Actress award at Cannes for her performance in The Conjugal Bed. The role also earned her a Golden Globe.It was completely unexpected. I was told the day before; I fell off my chair and quickly slipped on a little black dress,” Vlady once shared.Just two years later, Vlady took on one of her rare English-language roles, appearing in Orson Welles’ Shakespeare adaptation Chimes at Midnight.Born into an artistic family, Vlady was the daughter of a former dancer and a former French Army aviator who also performed at the opera. Acting wasn’t her only creative pursuit — she also explored music, recording two albums with her sisters.Born Catherine Marina de Poliakoff-Baïdaroff in 1938, she grew up in Clichy, near Paris, in a family of Russian immigrants who had fled the aftermath of the revolution. Her father, Vladimir Poliakoff, was an opera singer who had served in the French military, while her mother, Militza, was a former ballet dancer. All four Poliakoff sisters would eventually find their way into the arts.