Geneviève Page, Actress in ‘Belle de Jour,’ ‘El Cid’ and ‘The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes,’ Dies at 97
The French beauty shared a brief kiss with Catherine Deneuve in a memorable scene from the Luis Buñuel film about a high-class brothel.
She was not on the list.
Geneviève Page, the alluring French actress who starred in such films as Belle de Jour, El Cid and The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, died Friday. She was 97.
Page died at her home in Paris, her granddaughter, actress Zoé Guillemaud, told the AFP news agency.
In a career of more than 50 years, Page appeared in other notable films including Fanfan la Tulip (1952); Foreign Intrigue (1956), opposite Robert Mitchum; The Silken Affair (1956), with David Niven; John Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix (1966); Mayerling (1968), directed by Terence Young; and Charles Vidor’s Song Without End (1960), where the director died mid-shoot and was replaced by George Cukor.
In 1967, Spanish director Luis Buñuel cast Page as Madame Anais, the owner and operator of the high-class brothel in Belle de Jour, an adaptation of Joseph Kessel’s 1928 novel.
The film centers on Severine Serizy (Catherine Deneuve), whose sexless marriage pushes her into prostitution — but only between the hours of 2 and 5 p.m. As a result, Page nicknames her “Belle de Jour,” roughly translated to “Beauty of the Day.”
Madame Anais is a demanding, no-nonsense woman, with a hint of attraction toward Deneuve’s character, and the film features a very brief kiss between the two. Page received a supporting actress nomination from the National Society of Film Critics for her work, and the drama won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
A year earlier, Page had a brief role in Grand Prix (1966) as the estranged wife who refuses to grant Ferrari driver Jean-Pierre Sarti (Yves Montand) a divorce.
The Italian-American medieval epic El Cid (1961) saw Page perfectly cast as the scheming Princess Urraca. Starring Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren, the film was a huge spectacle, running more than three hours with an overture and intermission and costing $6 million to make. “A Great Adventure, A Great Love Story, Great Stars,” the trailer proclaimed.
At the start of the 1970s, director Billy Wilder released The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, with Robert Stephens as the famed detective and Colin Blakely portraying Dr. Watson. Page plays a mysterious Belgian client who asks Holmes to find her missing engineer husband.
Production of the film was halted after a 30-foot Loch Ness Monster model, built for a key sequence in the film, sank in the lake while being towed behind a boat.
“We lost our Loch Ness monster, but he [Wilder] didn’t seem to worry too much, even though he’s the producer as well as the director,” Page told The New York Times in 1969. “He was more concerned to go over and comfort the man who had made it and who was upset about its disappearing.”
The giant prop was discovered 47 years later, during a sonar survey, lying on the seabed.
She was born Geneviève Bonjean in Paris on Dec. 13, 1927. Her father, Jacques Paul Bonjean, was an art dealer and collector who opened a gallery in partnership with Christian Dior.
One of her earliest screen appearances came in the French adventure Fanfan la Tulip, which starred Gina Lollobrigida and, as the title character, Gerard Philipe. In the film, Page is rescued from a group of bandits by the swashbuckling, roguish army recruit Fanfan and offers him a tulip as thanks.
Her film résumé also included the black comedy Buffet Froid (1979), Claude Miller’s Deadly Circuit (1983) and Robert Altman‘s Beyond Therapy (1987).
Page also was a distinguished stage actress, appearing in The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant in 1980 and receiving the Moliere Award in 1996 for Colombe.
She was married to businessman Jean-Claude Bujard from 1959 until his death in 2011.
Actress
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Martha Loncle
2003
Bernard Le Coq and Geneviève Page in Mémoires en fuite
(2000)
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6.5
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Jeanne Lemoyne
2000
Lovers (1999)
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Alice
1999
Stranger in the House (1992)
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6.1
Bernadette
1992
Les gens ne sont pas forcément ignobles (1991)
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1991
Béatrice Dalle in Dark Woods (1989)
Dark Woods
5.7
Nathalie Dupin
1989
Cartoline italiane (1987)
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Silvana
1987
Bridget Fonda, John Hurt, Theresa Russell, and James Mathers
in Aria (1987)
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5.7
(segment "Les Boréades") (uncredited)
1987
Beyond Therapy (1987)
Beyond Therapy
4.7
Zizi
1987
Emmenez-moi au théâtre (1982)
Emmenez-moi au théâtre
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La Tisbé
1985
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(1983)
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1984
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Deadly Circuit (1983)
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6.9
Mme Schmidt-Boulanger
1983
Buffet Froid (1979)
Buffet Froid
7.2
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1979
Shades of Greene (1975)
Shades of Greene
7.8
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Madame Dejoie
1976
1 episode
La chasse aux hommes (1975)
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1975
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Décembre (1973)
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1973
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4.6
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1973
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Evremont
1971
Keve Hjelm, Gunnel Lindblom, Geneviève Page, and Laurent
Terzieff in Brother Carl (1971)
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5.6
Karen Sandler
1971
Robert Stephens in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
(1970)
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7.0
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1970
The Winslow Boy (1977)
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7.1
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1969
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Rosenthal, and Paula Wilcox in ITV Playhouse (1967)
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7.2
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Camille
1968
1 episode
James Mason, Catherine Deneuve, Ava Gardner, and Omar Sharif
in Mayerling (1968)
Mayerling
6.1
Countess Larish (as Genevieve Page)
1968
Felix Aylmer, Colin Blakely, and Geneviève Page in Decline
and Fall... of a Birdwatcher (1968)
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5.6
Margot Beste-Chetwynde (as Genevieve Page)
1968
Catherine Deneuve in Belle de Jour (1967)
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7.6
Madame Anais
1967
James Garner, Toshirô Mifune, Eva Marie Saint, Antonio
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7.2
Monique Delvaux-Sarti (as Genevieve Page)
1966
Christian Barbier and Michel Le Royer in Les corsaires
(1966)
Les corsaires
6.7
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Mary Brown
1966
Tender Scoundrel (1966)
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1966
Three Rooms in Manhattan (1965)
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Yolande Combes
1965
Le majordome (1965)
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6.2
Agnès des Vallières
1965
La chambre
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Eve
1964
Youngblood Hawke (1964)
Youngblood Hawke
6.1
Frieda Winter (as Genevieve Page)
1964
The Reluctant Spy (1963)
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5.7
Ursula Keller
1963
Simone Signoret and Stuart Whitman in The Day and the Hour
(1963)
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6.5
Agathe Dutheil
1963
Les Caprices de Marianne (1962)
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1962
Jean-Pierre Marielle in La nuit des rois (1962)
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Viola
1962
Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren in El Cid (1961)
El Cid
7.2
Princess Urraca (as Genevieve Page)
1961
Capucine, Dirk Bogarde, and Geneviève Page in Song Without
End (1960)
Song Without End
6.1
Countess Marie
1960
Agguato a Tangeri (1957)
Agguato a Tangeri
5.7
Mary Bolevasco
1957
Girl in His Pocket (1957)
Girl in His Pocket
5.7
Edith
1957
Curd Jürgens and Geneviève Page in Michael Strogoff (1956)
Michael Strogoff
6.0
Nadia Fédor
1956
The Silken Affair (1956)
The Silken Affair
5.4
Genevieve Gerard
1956
Robert Mitchum, Frédéric O'Brady, Geneviève Page, and Ingrid
Thulin in Foreign Intrigue (1956)
Foreign Intrigue
6.0
Dominique
1956
Cherchez la femme (1955)
Cherchez la femme
Barbara Van Looren
1955
Nuits andalouses (1954)
Nuits andalouses
5.4
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1954
L'étrange désir de Monsieur Bard (1954)
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6.8
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1954
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1954
Lettre ouverte (1953)
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Colette Simonet
1953
La chasse à l'homme
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1952
Pleasures of Paris (1952)
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Violette
Denise
1952
Gina Lollobrigida and Gérard Philipe in Fanfan la Tulipe
(1952)
Fanfan la Tulipe
7.2
La marquise de Pompadour
1952
Michel Auclair, Marcel Herrand, and Simone Renant in Pas de
pitié pour les femmes (1950)
Pas de pitié pour les femmes
3.8
Carole de Norbois
1950
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1997
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Le cercle de minuit (1992)
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Studio Gabriel (1994)
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6.4
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Self
1996
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Droit d'auteurs (1996)
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1996
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Du côté de chez Fred (1988)
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1988
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Mardi cinéma (1982)
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6.7
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1987
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1979
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Jacques Higelin in Ce que Paris chante (1973)
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TV Mini Series
Self
1973
1 episode
Midi Trente (1972)
Midi Trente
7.3
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Self
1973
1 episode
Jean Vilar, une belle vie
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1972
Cinépanorama (1956)
Cinépanorama
7.3
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Self
1964
2 episodes
Hommage à Debussy
1963
Reflets de Cannes (1952)
Reflets de Cannes
8.8
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1958
1 episode
Rendez-vous avec Maurice Chevalier n°5 - Soirs de Paris
(1957)
Rendez-vous avec Maurice Chevalier n°5 - Soirs de Paris
Short
Self
1957
Bruce Forsyth, Frankie Howerd, Des O'Connor, Jimmy Tarbuck,
and Norman Wisdom in Val Parnell's Sunday Night at the London Palladium (1955)
Val Parnell's Sunday Night at the London Palladium
7.5
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Self
1956
1 episode
Picture Parade
2.6
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1956
1 episode
Le Cabinet des estampes (1953)
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Self
1955
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La joie de vivre (1952)
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1955
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Days of Our Years
5.5
Self
1950
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(archive footage)
2023
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