Other works. She was buried in France. Their affair created a minor scandal in Parisian society; When Seberg and Gary finally secured divorces from their respective spouses, they married discreetly and had to keep the birth of their son a secret for several years. [37], In 1970, the FBI created a false story from a San Francisco-based informant that the child whom Seberg was carrying was not fathered by her husband, Romain Gary, but by Raymond Hewitt, a member of the Black Panther Party. Jean Seberg spent the 1960s as an internationally recognized actress, an icon of French cinema's New Wave and one of the chicest women in Hollywood, or New York, or Paris. [21] On the failure, she later told the press: I am the greatest example of a very real fact, that all the publicity in the world will not make you a movie star if you are not also an actress. The character of Anny Vikland in William Boyds 2020 novel Trio strongly resembles Sebergs in details of her life and death. I think Jean was so supersensitive that her understanding of politics was probably naive., The two shared the same makeup man; Baker recalled him calling her while he was working in Oregon on the set of Paint Your Wagon with Seberg. Reverend Thomas Duggan had officiated a "blessing" of the couple at the American Church in Paris, but the ceremony had no legal force because Seberg was still legally married to. | As she put it, according to Longworth: I got a crush on someone else. The circumstances of Jean Sebergs death 40 years ago in late August 1979 were squalid and pathetic. Susan King is a former entertainment writer at the Los Angeles Times who specialized in Classic Hollywood stories. On the jet flight in first class, she witnesses a Black activist insisting on sitting in first class and offering to pay for the seats. He changed the family surname to Seberg in memory of the water and mountains of Sweden. Her death, though, put her right back on the front pages. "[51], On September 5, 1958, at the age of 19, Seberg married Franois Moreuil, a French lawyer (aged 23) in her native Marshalltown, having met him in France 15 months earlier. She was the subject of surveillance, threatening phone calls and home break-ins. CREATIVE. Actress Jean Seberg (Kristen Stewart) becomes an FBI target after she takes up the causes of the Black Panthers in "Seberg." Amazon Studios Deep into the 1960s period piece "Seberg," Kristen Stewart as the title character glides through a New York hotel lobby to the lush and melancholy sounds of the cult hit "It's Raining Today" by Scott Walker. Sebergs crime, in Hoovers eyes, was her involvement in political causes and her support of the Black Panther Party. Jean Dorothy Seberg was an American actress best known for her performance in films, such as 'Breathless', 'Paint Your Wagon', and 'Gang War in Naples'. "[74][75], In his autobiography, Los Angeles Times editor Jim Bellows describes events leading up to the Seberg articles, expressing regret that he had not vetted the articles sufficiently. Seberg suffered from Premingers tyrannical direction and received actual burns during Joans death scene on the stake and had to be rescued. She was just excited to play the female lead: Elizabeth, the spirited second wife of a Mormon man who wanders into the Gold Rush mining camp. During the long shoot, Jeanamused herself by having an affair with Clint Eastwood, Longworth said. Also from 2004, Seberg is recalled in the Divine Comedy song "Absent Friends": Little Jean Seberg seemed / So full of life / But in those eyes such troubled dreams / Poor little Jean". In February and March 1966, she starred in Line of Demarcation, filmed around Dole, Jura,[28] and in May and June 1967, she played the lead role in the French-Italian Eurospy film The Road to Corinth, shot in Greece.[29]. #JeanSeberg #MuseMonday #7FAM_EU #7ForAllMankind, A post shared by 7 For All Mankind Europe (@7forallmankind_eu) on Jan 23, 2017 at 11:25am PST. She gave birth to their daughter, Nina Hart Gary, on August 23, 1970. Barcelona, Spain. [22], Seberg renegotiated her contract with Preminger and signed a long-term contract with Columbia Pictures. One of the reasons the film went over budget is that director Joshua Logan wanted to shoot in a remote wilderness in northeast Oregon. A pharmacists daughter who had grown up in Marshalltown, Iowa, she had won Hollywoods version of the Lottery by landing the lead role in Otto Premingers George Bernard Shaw adaptation, Saint Joan (1957). I loved working with her. Seberg's father reacted strongly to the story of FBI abuses, stating that "if this is true, why in the dickens didn't they just shoot her, instead of having all this travail that's gone on. As Alistair Cooke told British listeners in one of his Letters from America broadcasts the week after her death, she took her prematurely born babys corpse back home to Iowa in a glass coffin as a glaring proof that the baby was white an excessive reaction perhaps but in 1970, she knew that the FBI could and did destroy hundreds of radicals and non radicals. But that isolation proved fruitful in some ways. Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in, As a biopic about the troubled actor arrives in UK cinemas, Geoffrey Macnab looks back at one of the strangest and most contradictory film careers of the postwar years, Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile. [63] Hasni persuaded her to sell her second apartment on the Rue du Bac, and he kept the proceeds (reportedly 11 million francs in cash), announcing that he would use the money to open a Barcelona restaurant. Baker recalled that Gary was worried about Seberg. Newsweek also wrote about it and named Seberg. Preminger told the press: "It's quite true that, if I had chosen Audrey Hepburn instead of Jean Seberg, it would have been less of a risk, but I prefer to take the risk. Jean Dorothy Seberg was born in Marshalltown, Iowa, to substitute teacher Dorothy Arline (Benson) and pharmacist Edward Waldemar Seberg. Still, it is hard for an American to get used to. She was further scorched by critics for her staid performance. [22], Despite extended stays in the United States, Seberg remained in Paris for the rest of her life. While filming Macho Callahan in Durango, Mexico, in the winter of 196970, Seberg became romantically involved with a student revolutionary named Carlos Ornelas Navarra. The second was being burned at the stake by the critics. The Talent Scout by Romain Gary (1961) features a recognizable portrait of Seberg. I never knew until I came here [Hollywood] that somebody could be really nice to you for years and really hate your guts. Ten days after actress Jean Seberg had been reported missing, her decomposing body was found wrapped in a blanket in the back seat of her white Renault in Paris. Access unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows with Amazon Prime Video Sign up now for a 30-day free trial. It's about truly free love, not the silly studio kind as they portray it in this hokey musical, because it's set in Paris in the 60s fashion world & it's a grownup's movie about marriage &I love (&fashion) & life . As someone whos worked with some of the worlds truly great actresses, [and] whether its onstage or in front of the camera, [they] lay bare their most private spaces. In 1961 she met French aviator, resistance member, novelist and diplomat Romain Gary, who was 24 years her senior and married to author Lesley Blanch. Her father was of Swedish descent and her mother was of English and German ancestry.One month before her 18th birthday, Jean landed the title role in Otto Preminger's Saint Joan (1957) after a much-publicized contest involving some 18,000 hopefuls. 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Jordan Michael B. Handsome at Walk of Fame ceremony. Photos: Clint Eastwood selling Pebble Beach mansion Godard and Claude Chabrol were equally smitten with her. [52] They divorced in 1960. I hardly had met anyone my age that was intellectually curious., Seberg even brought Jamal to Bakers Beverly Hills apartment. According to Gary, she had tried to kill herself every year on the anniversary of Ninas death. Seberg gave a memorable performance as a schizophrenic in the title role of Robert Rossen's Lilith (1964) opposite Warren Beatty and went on to appear in over 30 films in Hollywood and Europe.In the late 1960s, Seberg became involved in anti-war politics and was the target of an undercover campaign by the FBI to discredit her because of her association with several members of the Black Panther party. [34], During the late 1960s, Seberg provided financial support to groups supporting civil rights, such as the NAACP as well as Native American school groups such as the Meskwaki Bucks at the Tama settlement near her hometown of Marshalltown, for whom she purchased $500 worth of basketball uniforms. Their plan worked. She had known Gary before he married Seberg, and he introduced her to Baker. Seberg assumed Eastwood was madly in love with her, too, and was ready to leave his wife. She has previously reported or edited for Bay Area news and lifestyle publications, including Walnut Creek Patch, and Diablo, Oakland and Alameda magazines, as well as The Nation in Bangkok, Thailand and The Economist. Jean Seberg, a well known actress in the 60s, became pregnant and the FBI sent out letters to the gossip columnists identifying the baby's father as a Black Panther, in order to cheapen Seberg's image. [4][5], Seberg appeared in 34 films in Hollywood and in Europe, including Saint Joan, Bonjour Tristesse, Lilith, The Mouse That Roared, Breathless, Moment to Moment, A Fine Madness, Paint Your Wagon, Airport, Macho Callahan, and Gang War in Naples. The fact that people stared at her and fixated on things that were not real, projections: that really ultimately destroyed her, Kristen Stewart, who plays her in the new film, Seberg, commented of the ill-fated actress in a Vanity Fair interview. The child died two days later. Jean Seberg, an American actress known for playing the female lead in Jean-Luc Godard 's film Breathless, prepares to part with her husband, Romain Gary, and child in Paris before leaving for Los Angeles. He said that the marriage was "violent" and that Seberg "got married for all the wrong reasons."[22]. Her name was entered by a neighbor.[17][19]. [13][14][15], Her paternal grandfather, Edward Carlson, arrived in the U.S. in 1882 and observed, "there are too many Carlsons in the New World." It would have made the perfect story about overnight stardom if it hadnt been for the fact that the film didnt turn out very well. Eventually, Gary finally turned up on location. Happens all the time here. Born in Marshalltown, Iowa, US, she began her film career when she was nineteen. [82], In 2022, Kacey Rohl portrayed Seberg in White Dog (Chien blanc), a film adaptation by Anas Barbeau-Lavalette of Gary's 1970 book.[83]. [37] U.S. surveillance was deployed while she was residing in France and while traveling in Switzerland and Italy. The romance got intense enough that Seberg decided to end things with her then-husband, French novelist and diplomat Romain Gary. "[25] Despite her achievements, Seberg did not identify with her characters or the film plots, saying that she was "making films in France about people [I'm] not really interested in. Shes most famous as the blonde American beauty sporting a boyish haircut in 1960s Breathless, Jean-Luc Goddards classic of French New Wave cinema. Godard is like a Paul Klee painting, always hiding behind those funny dark glasses, she suggested, going on to call the French auteurs who worshipped her very strange little men. [27], In 1966 and 1967, Seberg played the leading roles in two French films directed by Claude Chabrol and co-starring Maurice Ronet. The sad news was announced Sept. 8, 1979. But in recent years, even Eastwood admitted that this image didnt always match reality. Charles Champlin. Seberg starred with Warren Beatty in the American film Lilith (1964) for Columbia, which prompted the critics to acknowledge Seberg as a serious actress. Eastwoods ferocious sexual appetite was common knowledge in the movie industry, says biographer Patrick McGilligan. [8][9] The FBI's stated goal was an unspecified "neutralization" of Seberg with a subsidiary objective to "cause her embarrassment and serve to cheapen her image with the public", while taking the "usual precautions to avoid identification of the Bureau. Seberg went into premature labor and, on August 23, 1970, gave birth to a 4 lb (1.8 kg) baby girl. In October 1968, Seberg was on the same flight as the former heroin addict turned revolutionary Hakim Jamal, who was married to a cousin of Malcolm X. Gave birth to Nina Hart, her daughter by Carlos Navarra, two months prematurely on August 23, 1970. Director Benedict Andrews Writers Joe Shrapnel Anna Waterhouse Stars Kristen Stewart Yvan Attal Gabriel Sky When the actress returned to Hollywood in 1968 to make Paint Your Wagon, Airport and Macho Callahan, the FBI became interested in her because not only had she donated money to the Black Panthers, she had begun an affair with a married African American activist.