French actress Marina Vlady, Cannes award winner and author, dies at age 88

Early life and rise to screen prominence

Catherine Marina de Poliakoff-Baïdaroff was born in Clichy, France, on 10 May 1938 to Russian emigrant parents who had fled the 1917 Russian Revolution. Her father, Vladimir Poliakoff, was an opera baritone, while her mother, Militza, was a prima ballerina. She initially trained as a ballet dancer at the Paris Opera before transitioning into cinema during childhood. She secured her first film role at age 10 in Jean Gehret's 1949 production Orage d'été. At age 16, her performance in André Cayatte's 1954 film Avant le déluge earned her the Suzanne Bianchetti prize for most promising actress. The following year, she married director and actor Robert Hossein at age 17, starring in several of his films and having two sons before their divorce.

Acclaimed roles and Cannes recognition

Across a filmography exceeding 80 titles, Vlady established herself as a leading figure in French and Italian cinema. She appeared alongside Marcello Mastroianni in Italian productions including the 1952 film Penne nere and the 1954 feature Giorni d'amore. In 1961, she starred as the lead in Jean Delannoy's film adaptation La Princesse de Clèves. Her most celebrated screen achievement followed in 1963, when Marco Ferreri cast her in the satirical comedy The Conjugal Bed, known in Italy as Una storia moderna: L'ape regina, which earned her the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival. Throughout the 1960s and beyond, she collaborated with prominent European auteurs, including Jean-Luc Godard in Two or Three Things I Know About Her, as well as Orson Welles, Bertrand Tavernier, Chris Marker, and Ettore Scola, later rejoining Mastroianni and Massimo Troisi in Scola's 1988 film Splendor.

Life in Moscow and Vladimir Vysotsky

In 1967, Vlady attended the Moscow Film Festival, where she met Soviet bard, poet, and actor Vladimir Vysotsky. The couple married and lived between Moscow and France until Vysotsky's death in 1980, with sources recording their wedding in either 1969 or 1970. Vlady remained in Moscow during their marriage, and the partnership became one of the most prominent cultural unions of the late Soviet era. Following Vysotsky's death, she detailed their relationship in her 1987 book Vladimir ou le vol arrêté, which was later adapted into a stage production. Prior to her marriage to Vysotsky, Vlady was married to aviator Jean-Claude Brouillet, with whom she had one son, and she later married French oncologist Léon Schwartzenberg.

Literary work, stage career, and activism

Beginning in the 1990s, Vlady focused increasingly on theatre while continuing her writing career, authoring approximately ten books, including her 2005 memoir 24 images/seconde. She also appeared in mainstream French comedies during the 1970s, such as Jean Yanne's Tout le monde il est beau, tout le monde il est gentil and Tavernier's Que la fête commence, while recording music alongside her sisters under the ensemble name Les sœurs Poliakoff. Throughout her life, Vlady participated in political activism, signing the Manifesto of the 343 in 1971 to demand abortion legalisation in France, opposing the Algerian War, and supporting undocumented migrants. Together with Schwartzenberg, she co-founded the housing rights organisation Droit au logement.

Her children confirmed that she died on 24 September 2026 at age 88 at home, surrounded by her loved ones and pets.

Marina Vlady was a generous woman who was committed throughout her life, from the Algerian War, the Manifesto of the 343, then undocumented migrants and the Right to Housing with her last companion Léon Schwartzenberg.