Her appeal to overseas directors was handily captured in the title of one of her earliest American films: Foreign Intrigue (1956), a nondescript Riviera-set potboiler in which the young actress found herself sharing romantic scenes with Robert Mitchum. (“A charming man”, Page later recalled, albeit one who “reeked of pastis”.)
Page became a feature of these hands-across-oceans co-productions being shot in the newly peaceful Europe. In Song Without End (1960), she played Countess Marie to Dirk Bogarde’s Franz Liszt, forbidding her husband to perform in public and thereby driving him into another woman’s arms. In Mann’s thundering historical epic El Cid, she was radiant as Princess Urraca; jolly behind-the-scenes publicity photos indicate she bonded with Sophia Loren better than Charlton Heston ever did.
After serving on the Fritz Lang-chaired Cannes jury that bestowed its top prize on The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), she appeared in John Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix (1966) as Monique Delvaux-Sarti, discarded trophy wife of Yves Montand’s fading petrolhead; Variety noted she was “elegant and alluring as ever” as the much-desired Margot Beste-Chetwynde in John Krish’s Evelyn Waugh adaptation Decline and Fall… of a Birdwatcher (1968).
This brief British pitstop also took in Terence Young’s critically savaged costumer Mayerling (1968) alongside Omar Sharif and Catherine Deneuve. Page, who’d landed a supporting role as the Austrian Countess Larisch, was energised by the idea of working with Ava Gardner, cast as the Empress Elisabeth, but finally underwhelmed: “We never saw her, but we waited for her for hours.”
Sharp wit lay beneath the gleaming façade, and Page repurposed her beauty as the movies began to explore more adult themes. Buñuel deployed her as Belle de Jour’s Madame Anais, the brunette brothelkeeper who shares a moment of Sapphic tension with Deneuve’s blonde fantasy figure: “Buñuel had asked me to kiss her on the mouth without warning her. I told her that if she slapped me, I would slap her back.”
For the no less mischievous Wilder, Page was Gabrielle Valladon, the pistol-packing Belgian fished from the Thames to give Robert Stephens’ Sherlock the runaround. Less fortunate was a model Loch Ness Monster that sank during production: “[Wilder] didn’t seem to worry too much,” Page told The New York Times. “He was more concerned to go over and comfort the man who had made it and who was upset about its disappearing.”
Thereafter Page grew only more adventurous. She was fierce as a theatre director – declaiming “I want my dream! I want my grief!” – in Brother Carl (1971), a Bergman-inspired curio shot in Stockholm by Susan Sontag; and as a widowed nymphomaniac in Bertrand Blier’s gurgling comedy Buffet froid (1979). Bold stage work lay behind this new versatility, as did growing self-awareness: “I have no consistency in my ideas, I know all my faults, and they make me laugh.”
She was born Geneviève Anne Marguerite Bronjean on December 13, 1927 to art collector Jacques Bronjean and his wife Germaine (née Lipman), a couple who moved in exclusive Parisian circles; her godfather was Christian Dior, Jacques’ partner in a gallery. “[Dior] had no money at the time,” Page remembered. “He had lunch every other day at home and played the piano with my mother in my room... I took refuge in the bathroom to learn my lessons.”
Aged twelve, she was handed a stack of Voltaire plays by her father, who insisted “if she can’t read Voltaire, she can’t read anyone”. These lessons stuck. After studying at the École du Louvre and the Paris Conservatoire, Page emerged on stage in Jean-Louis Barrault’s 1943 abridgement of Paul Claudel’s verse epic The Satin Slipper, before becoming associated with the Théâtre National Populaire.
She made her film debut in the thriller Pas de pitié pour les femmes (No Pity for Women, 1950), but a bigger impression in Christian-Jaque’s Fanfan la tulipe (1952), where – as Madame de Pompadour – she bestowed the titular flower on Gérard Philipe’s swashbuckling hero after he rescues her from bandits.
Despite her cinematic travels, she remained close to France, where she’d made her home with businessman Jean-Claude Bujard, whom she married in 1959. Sporadic screen appearances followed: in Robert Altman’s Beyond Therapy (1987), Jean-Marc Barr’s Dogme drama Lovers (1999), and the movieland comedy Rien que du bonheur (2003), her final film role.
By then, however, she was established as a doyenne of the Parisian stage, her reputation secured by a 1976 production of Hedda Gabler. She won a critics’ prize in the title role of the 1980 adaptation of Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant; was Molière-nominated in 1996 as Madame Alexandra in Anouilh’s The Lark; and in 2011, aged 83, she played Agrippina in Racine’s Britannicus at the Figeac Theatre Festival, her final stage role.
Bujard died one month later; during a melancholy 2013 interview, Page confessed she was “not used to talking anymore” before quoting the poet Clément Marot: “I am no longer what I was, and I will never be able to be. My beautiful springtime and summer have jumped out the window.”
She is survived by her two children with Bujard, Thomas and Adélaïde.
Geneviève Page, born December 13, 1927, died February 14, 2025.
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