Claude Jade

An internationally acclaimed French actress. Born Claude Marcelle Jorré, in Dijon, France, the daughter of English professors – Marcel Jorré and Marcelle Schneider – Claude Jade spent three years at the Dijon Conservatory of Dramatic Art – like years before Edwige Feuillère and Marlène Jobert. Subsequently she moved to Paris, worked at the Theatre Edouard with her teachers like Jean-Laurent Cochet or Mary Marquet and in the class with Gérard Depardieu. During that time she began acting in television productions and on stage. It was while she was performing at the Theatre Moderne in Sacha Pitoëff’s production of "Henri IV”, that she was discovered by François Truffaut, who cast her in the role of Christine Darbon, the girl-friend of his alter-ego Antoine Doinel played by Jean-Pierre Léaud, in his film Stolen Kisses (1968). Her screen debut earned her great acclaim and placed Claude Jade in the international spotlight. She reprised her most noted role as Christine in Truffaut’s Bed and Board (1970) and Love on the Run (1979). Claude Jade was at that time romantically involved to Truffaut. Some years later – in 1972 – she married French diplomate Bernard Coste, and son Pierre was born in 1976. After her screen-debut, Claude Jade gained fame and adulation, catching the attention of Alfred Hitchcock, who cast her as the worried agent’s daughter Michèle in Topaz (1969), and went on to enjoy a prolific international career. In French cinema her most memorable roles where Manette in Edouard Molinaro’s romantic comedy The Adventures of Uncle Benjamin (1969), her innocent Cécile in Temoin, Le(1969) , the unscrupulous Eleanore in The Boat on the Grass (1971) by Gérard Brach and the courageous Françoise in Denys de La Patellière’s drama Forbidden Priests (1973). One of her most honored roles is the nurse Claire in Home Sweet Home (1973). Claude also played Tiffany in the police drama filmed in Rome La ragazza di Via Condotti (1973). Of her later roles in the 80’s there is the double-role in Lise et Laura (1983) , then Marielle in Une Petite fille dans les tournesols (1984) and Alice with director ‘René Feret’ in his The Man Who Wasn’t There (1987). Her rare leading roles on screen in the 90’s were the lovely mother Gabrielle in List of Merite (1992), the shy lesbian heiress Caroline with Michel Serrault in Bonsoir (1994) by Jean-Pierre Mocky and the governor’s wife Reine Schmaltz in The Raft of the Medusa (1994). Claude Jade also continued to perform on stage and television, where she had her most popular role as Véronique d’Hergemont, heroine of famous mini-series “Coffin Island” (1979).

Her many contributions to French Culture were recognised in 1998, when she was named a Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur. In 2000 she received the New Wave Award at the Palm Beach International Film Festival for the ‘trend-setting role in the world cinema and the unique style has set for generations of actresses’. —IMDb