Nathalie Baye dead: Downton Abbey actor, 77, dies after dementia diagnosis
Downton Abbey star Nathalie Baye has died aged 77 after her battle with Lewy body dementia.The actress – best known for her appearances in Downton Abbey: A New Era, Catch Me If You Can, and Laurence Anyways – passed away on April 17th at her home in Paris.Baye is survived by her daughter, actor Laura Smet. The star had been living with Lewy body dementia, a neurodegenerative condition that can affect movement, mood, and cause hallucinations.Over a long and varied career, she appeared in more than 100 films, beginning in the 1970s with a role in the television series Au théâtre ce soir.Her breakthrough came a few years later in François Truffaut’s Day for Night, a romantic comedy-drama centred on a filmmaker racing to complete his latest project.During the same decade, she collaborated with directors Maurice Pialat and Claude Sautet, before working with Jean-Luc Godard on Détective in 1985, which was selected for that year’s Cannes Film Festival.In 1982, she starred in Daniel Vigne’s Le Retour de Martin Guerre, playing a 16th-century peasant caught up in a case of identity theft. The story was later adapted in Hollywood, with Jodie Foster taking the lead role.She went on to play Leonardo DiCaprio’s mother in Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can in 2002, and more recently appeared as the formidable Madame de Montmirail in Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022). Her character's late husband was a friend of Violet Crawley.Across her career, she received seven César Award nominations for Best Actress, winning twice, and also took home two César Awards for Best Supporting Actress.Downton Abbey: A New Era follows on from 2019’s Downton Abbey film, which was a sequel to the hit ITV television series of the same name which ran for six series from 2010 to 2015.Lord and Lady Grantham (Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern) head to a villa in the South Of France, bequeathed to Dame Maggie Smith's Dowager Countess by a mysterious amour from the previous century.Meanwhile, Hollywood has come to Downton. To raise funds for the cash-strapped estate, Michelle Dockery’s Lady Mary Talbot has accepted an offer from film producer Jack Barber (Hugh Dancy) to use the house as a location for a silent movie.There's drama and comedy when cockney diva Myrna Dalgleish (Laura Haddock), and dashing star Guy Dexter (Dominic West) roll up at the gates.Fellowes cribs from Singin' In The Rain, as Barber turns the film into a new-fangled talkie and Lady Mary and her star-struck servants pitch in.There's also plenty of old-fashioned pomp on display at the wedding of Tom (Allen Leech) and maid Lucy ( Tuppence Middleton ).The couple struck up a romance in the first film just before Tom made the fortuitous discovery that Lucy was the secret illegitimate daughter of Baroness Bagshaw.* Follow Mirror Celebs on Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Threads.
