Iconic French actress Nathalie Baye dies aged 77
By Serge Duchêne with AFP
Published on
18/04/2026 - 18:12 GMT+2
French actress Nathalie Baye, winner of several Césars and internationally renowned for her role in Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can, has died aged 77, her family told AFP on Saturday.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
An iconic figure in French cinema, Baye appeared in nearly 80 films and won the César for Best Actress four times, including three consecutive years from 1981 to 1983.
She died on Friday evening at her Paris home of Lewy body dementia, her family said, a neurodegenerative disease which can alter mood and movement and cause hallucinations.
Emmanuel Macron paid tribute on social media platform X, describing her as: "an actress with whom we have loved, dreamed and grown up" and who "accompanied the last decades of French cinema, from François Truffaut to Tonie Marshall, with her voice, her smiles and her modesty," addressing his thoughts to "her family and her loved ones".
On Saturday, French Culture Minister Catherine Pégard expressed her "emotion" at "the death of an immense actress."
"Nathalie Baye illuminated a long page in the history of French cinema with her talent and luminous personality. I send my condolences to her family, to the world of cinema and to all those who loved her", she said in a statement to AFP.
Nathalie Baye's later career was boosted on the international stage, as she starred as Leonardo DiCaprio's mother in Catch Me If You Can and as a French aristocrat in Downton Abbey: A New Era
She also worked with Canadian prodigy Xavier Dolan, who gave her the role of one of his many difficult mothers in Laurence Anyways and It's Only the End of the World (Juste la fin du monde).
Baye won the Best Actress prize at the Venice Film Festival for her role in Frédéric Fonteyne's An Intimate Affair - whose French title was the more provocative 'A pornographic affair' (Une liaison pornographique).
In 2006, she also took the Best Actress prize at the San Sebastián Festival for her starring role in My Son (Mon fils à moi) by Martial Fougeron.
Baye enjoyed a five-year relationship with rock star Johnny Hallyday, whose death in 2017 plunged the country into mourning.
The couple starred together in Jean-Luc Godard's Détective in 1985.
Their daughter, Laura Smet, is also a famous actress. She starred alongside Baye in the hit series Call My Agent (Dix pour cent), playing a parody version of the two: quarrelsome, competitive, but very close.
Baye was born in Normandy in 1948 to bohemian parents, both painters. Dyslexic, she left school at 14 to study dance in Monaco.
A graduate of the Conservatoire National Supérieur d'Art Dramatique, she made her film debut in the 1970s, winning acclaim for her performance in François Truffaut's Day for Night (La Nuit Americaine).
Her breakthrough came in the 1970s when she worked with auteur film directors such as Truffaut, Maurice Pialat and Claude Sautet, then in the 1980s with Jean-Luc Godard.
Among her most memorable films:
The Informer (La Balance) (1982) - César for Best Actress for her role as a prostitute caught in a moral dilemma.
The Return of Martin Guerre (1982) - A classic of French cinema, in which she played Bertrande de Rols, alongside Gérard Depardieu.
Strange Affair (Une étrange affaire) (1981) - César for Best Supporting Actress.
Slow Motion - Sauve qui peut (la vie) (1980) - First César for Nathalie Baye, directed by Jean-Luc Godard.
Venus Beauty - Vénus Beauté (Institut) (1999) - César award-winning film in which she played a prominent supporting role.
Tell No One (Ne le dis à personne) (2006) - Successful thriller in which she plays the mother of the main character.
Catch Me If You Can (2002) - Notable role in this Steven Spielberg film, alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks.
The Flower of Evil (La fleur du mal) (2002) - Thriller by Claude Chabrol.
It's Only The End of The World (Juste la fin du monde) (2016) - Family drama by Xavier Dolan.
