Emmanuelle Seigner Biography and Photos

Emmanuelle Seigner (born June 22, 1966) is a French actress and former fashion model. Seigner was born in Paris, France to a photographer father and a journalist mother. She is the granddaughter of the respected French actor Louis Seigner (1903-1991) and sister of the actress Mathilde Seigner.

She was educated at a Catholic convent school, and began modelling at the age of fourteen, capitalizing on her beauty. She achieved international status as a professional model. She married the Polish film director Roman Polanski in 1989, and they have two children, Morgane and Elvis. He directed her in Frantic, with Harrison Ford and later in Bitter Moon, as well as The Ninth Gate with Johnny Depp.

In addition to her high-profile marriage to internationally renowned filmmaker Roman Polanski, actress Emmanuelle Seigner has utilized her enigmatic beauty to striking effect in such films as Jean-Luc Godard’s Détective and Polanski’s dark supernatural thriller The Ninth Gate.

A native of Paris and the daughter of a prolific photographer father and journalist mother, Seigner was no stranger to show business. Grandfather Louis and aunt Françoise were both members of the renowned Comédie Française, a theater company with a history that reaches back as far as 1680. Raised at a convent school before embarking on a career in modeling at age 14, Seigner’s unusual beauty found the blossoming cover girl eventually making a segue into film.

Seigner made her screen debut in the 1984 romantic drama Year of the Jellyfish, and it wasn’t long before her acting career was gaining momentum with Godard’s Détective and the 1986 drama Cours Privé. A year after appearing as Harrison Ford’s missing wife in Polanski’s Frantic (1989), the screen beauty exchanged wedding vows with the diminutive director.

Subsequently appearing in such Polanski efforts as Bitter Moon (1992) and The Ninth Gate (1999), Seigner also found success in her own right when nominated for a Best Supporting Actress César for her performance in the 1998 drama Place Vendôme.

Her role as the mysterious neighbor in 1999’s Buddy Boy utilized her beauty to striking effect, and in 2003 Seigner took the lead as a stripper who escapes the seedy world of men’s clubs only to uncover a horrifying secret about her husband in Corps à corps. With her high-profile role in the 2003 action film Os Imortais, it appeared as if Seigner might finally be escaping the legendary shadow of her husband to build a respectable onscreen career of her own.

Seigner appears as the main character in the music video “Hands Around my Throat” by Death In Vegas. In 2006 she became lead singer of the French band Ultra Orange, and the group’s name was changed to Ultra Orange and Emmanuelle.