Anna Karina

I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4 Get Your Own! | View SlideshowAnna Karina (born Hanna Karin Blarke Bayer September 22, 1940) is a Danish born film actor. Her father was a ship's captain who had left her mother before Anna turned one. After being raised by her maternal grandparents, where she stayed until the age of four, she spent time in and out of foster homes, before returning to live with her mother from the age of eight. She has described her childhood as "terribly wanting in love" and made numerous attempts as a child to run away from home. She began her career in Denmark, where she sang in cabarets and worked as a model playing in commercials and short films. She came to Paris in 1958 at age 17 where she met Pierre Cardin and Coco Chanel, who convinced her to change her name to Anna Karina. As a rising fashion model, she was noticed by Jean-Luc Godard then a film critic for the Cahiers du cinéma. Her first film appearance, although unauthorized, dates from 1959, when a soap advertisement in which she appeared as a model was included near the end of Guy Debord's On the Passage of a Few Persons Through a Rather Brief Unity of Time. The image was accompanied by Debord's voice-over "The advertisements during intermissions are the truest reflection of an intermission from life." According to Godard's biographer, Colin Macabe, Godard was in the middle of casting his debut feature film A bout de souffle Breathless that same year when he saw Karina in a series of Palmolive ads in a bath covered in soapsuds. He offered her an important part in the film, which she turned down because of a nude scene. When Godard questioned her about her refusal, referring to the supposed nudity in the palmoive ads she is said to have replied "Are you mad? I was fully clothed in those ads — the soapsuds went up to my neck. It was in your mind that I was undressed." The character Godard had reserved for her did not appear in the film. However, she eventually accepted his offer to play a major role in Le Petit Soldat (1960). Godard and Karina married on 3 March 1961 during the shooting of Une femme est une femme (they were divorced in 1968). The marriage was covered by Paris Match where a smiling Anna Karina embraced the cover dating from 25 March 1961. Anna Karina was awarded best actress at the Berlin Film Festival in 1961 for her interpretation of the character Angela in the film Une femme est une femme. Her acting career was not however limited to Godard's films, and she went on to a successful collaboration with other well-known directors. Her role in Suzanne Simonin, la Religieuse de Diderot (1967) by Jacques Rivette is considered by some as her best performance. She also acted in Luchino Visconti's L'Etranger. In 1973 she made her directing debut in Vivre Ensemble in which she also acted. She wrote and acted in Last Song in 1987. More recently, she appeared in Haut, Bas, Fragile (1995) by Jacques Rivette and sang in The Truth About Charlie. Anna Karina has also maintained an important singing career. At the beginning of the 1960s, she scored a major hit with "Sous le soleil exactement" and "Roller Girl", both songs taken from the musical comedy "Anna" by Serge Gainsbourg in which she sings seven songs alongside Serge Gainsbourg and Jean-Claude Brialy. More recently, she recorded an album entitled "Une histoire d'amour" with Philippe Katerine, which was followed up by a concert tour. Anna Karina has also written a novel and made several appearances on television.