Paris (AFP)
Comedian Claudine Auger, who gained international notoriety by becoming the first French James Bond girl in "Operation Thunder" in 1965, alongside Sean Connery, died Wednesday at the age of 78, the agency announced on Thursday. Art Time.
She died in Paris, said the artistic agency that represented her.
The one who started in small roles alongside Romy Schneider and Alain Delon ("Christine" by Pierre Gaspard-Huit - 1958) then at Cocteau ("Le testament d'Orphée"), is mainly known for her role in the franchise James Bond.
Long before Léa Seydoux, Eva Green and Carole Bouquet, other French James Bond girls, Claudine Auger was Domino, who helps agent 007, played by Sean Connery, to put down the criminal organization led by her former lover.
The young actress, with a mole under her lip, had won the casting before notably Raquel Welch, Faye Dunaway and Julie Christie. For her, facing Sean Connery, the character of Domino, initially Italian, had become French.
Born in April 1941, Claudine Auger began her career in modeling, becoming miss Cinémonde 1957, after the name of a journal in vogue, then representing France in the Miss World competition. She won the title of first runner-up in 1958.
In parallel, this "beauty queen" took acting lessons and after several small roles on the big screen and on the boards became known in France, in 1962 in "The Iron Mask" with Jean Marais.
Unsurprisingly, the year 1965 marked a turning point with the role of Domino in the film by Terence Young. His appearances in white and black swimsuit and white playsuit, alongside agent 007, are legendary.
For her, playing in the movies in the adventures of 007 or "playing Molière directed by Jean Vilar at the TNP" (National Popular Theater), it was "a game, the same thing", said the actress, interviewed on television in 1965.
The rest of her career took place mainly in Italy even if we later found her in small roles in films by Jacques Deray like "The Man from Marrakech" (1965), "A little sun in cold water "(1971)," Flic story "(1975) and" A butterfly on the shoulder "(1977).
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