French actress Emmanuelle Riva, star of 1959 classic "Hiroshima Mon Amour" and more recently the oldest best actress Oscar nominee in a late-career revival, died Friday from cancer. She was 89. Riva died in Paris "after a long illness," her agent, Anne Alvares Correa, told AFP. But Riva "was active until the end," Correa added. Riva, whose 60-year acting career spanned film, TV, and theatre, was nominated at 86 for a best leading actress Academy Award for "Amour", which won best foreign film Oscar in 2013.
"Emmanuelle Riva had a deeply impact on French cinema, whether it be with 'Hiroshima mon Amour' ... to invoke a wounded memory or, with 'Amour' ... to invoke the end of life," said French President Francois Hollande. "She created intense emotion in all of the roles she embodied," Hollande added.
Riva was born on February 24, 1927 in rural France and made her way to Paris at 19 to the dismay of her working-class family. She took acting lessons, obtaining a scholarship, and began her career on the stage. That's where famed French New Wave pioneer Alain Resnais spotted her, and he quickly cast her in her first leading feature role in "Hiroshima mon Amour".
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