Jeanne Moreau
In the 1950s, taking advantage of my status as a child born in the theater world, I used to stroll behind the scenes of the theater where Jeanne Moreau played.
While turning “Les amants” by Louis Malle, she had just created a scandal by suggesting orgasm just by clenching her hand on a sheet.
Muse of the new wave, friend of Miles Davis, she was already the representation of an insolence still ignored by most, she was ahead and did not care.
Under the false pretext of an upcoming photo session, every evening after the performance, I went to her dressing room for the pleasure of listening to her talk while removing her makeup. In short, like everyone else, I was in love with her.
Cinema, life, men, she devoted herself to a kind of press review of a joyful Paris. She did it with a disarming naturalness, in no way embarrassed by my presence, moving about in a fluid silk dressing gown with an unforgettable scent. No doubt amused by the assiduity of this shy teenager, she knew that with or without make-up, she was the absolute dream of the men of her time. I never felt the slightest mockery from her. Like Simone Signoret, with whom I had the privilege of having lunch twice a year throughout my life, Jeanne always had this marvelous ability to take an interest in others. During the time of a conversation, no one but you existed. I regret this politeness, this courtesy, it tends to disappear under the boorishness of the kinglets of the beautiful world, the short-sighted upstarts, who only listen to themselves, believing of getting themselves a personality by following the pack of those who watch each other mockingly, forgetting that it is not enough to be interesting to become so.
With their imagination and their courage, Jeanne and Simone remain the most obvious proof of this sentence of Boris Vian:
“Fashion is the imperative of the undecided.”
Jean-Marie Périer
