"My blood only made one turn" : when Brigitte Bardot was jealous of this immense French actress

In 1965, Louis Malle brought together two sacred monsters of cinema: Brigitte Bardot – whose life you can discover in the series bardot, available on Netflix – and Jeanne Moreau in her film Long live Maria!. Set in the early 20th century in Central America, the western tells the story of Maria, the daughter of an Irish anarchist, who is wanted by the police for planting bombs. She then hides in the trailer of a traveling music hall artist, also named Maria. The latter quickly offers to replace his partner, who has succumbed to heartbreak. They meet Florès, a Mexican revolutionary with whom they fall in love. Out of love, they took up his cause and after the young man’s death, decided to continue the mission he had started. If Long live Maria! met with enormous success in theaters, the filming, however, was not easy for Brigitte Bardot, who was secretly jealous of her partner.

Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau, an unprecedented rivalry

In his work Initials BB, memoirs of Brigitte Bardot, LThe 89-year-old actress returned to the filming of Louis Malle’s film, particularly about her rivalry with Jeanne Moreau. “One day, I saw Mama Olga (her manager, editor’s note) arrive. She came directly from Paris, furious, brandishing a stack of newspapers on which Jeanne was on the cover. Inside, all we saw and talked about was Jeanne in English, French, German, Italian and even Japanese. Oh mom! My blood only made one turn! Thereupon, Olga told me that Jeanne was in the process of removing the piece. That she had seen the ‘rushes’ in Paris, that the advantage was Jeanne’s. She knew how to make magnificent use of her role, particularly her love scene with Hamilton. I only served as a foil for him“, we could read in his memoirs. “It was well done for me, Jeanne the clever, open to the opportunity that presented itself, had played the trump cards and held the advantage, but the game was not over. I had other assets in hand. I had to win“.

Brigitte Bardot : “We weren’t friends in the true sense of the word.“

More than twenty years after the release of her memoirs, Brigitte Bardot once again opened up about her special relationship with the actress, who died on July 31, 2017 at the age of 89. “She was what I wasn’t, and I was what she wasn’t. We were not friends in the nice sense of the word, we were accomplices. I insist, accomplices as two sisters can be. Both of us fortunately lived through an exceptional time, specific to our professions. We shared this film by Louis Malle, Viva Maria!, which will remain in the annals and in our lives (…) “We were rivals, certainly, but at the same time very well behaved“, she revealed in the columns of Paris Match.

Article written in collaboration with 6Médias