Happy 70th Birthday Genevieve Bujold

Geneviève Bujold was born on July 1, 1942 in Montréal, Québec, Canada. She spent her first twelve school years in Montreal's oppressive Hochelaga Convent where opportunities for self-expression were limited to making welcoming speeches for visiting clerics. Caught reading a forbidden novel, she was handed her ticket out of the convent and she then enrolled in Montreal's free Conservatoire d'Art Dramatique. There she was trained in classical French drama and shortly before graduation was offered a part in a professional production of Beaumarchais' “The Barber of Seville”. In 1965 while on a theatrical tour of Paris with another Montreal company, Rideau Vert, Bujold was recommended to director 'Alain Renais' who cast her opposite Yves Montand in “The War Is Over” (1966). She then made two other French films in quick succession, the Philippe de Broca cult classic “King of Hearts” (1966) and Louis Malle's “The Thief of Paris” (1967). Bujold was also very active during this time in Canadian television where she met and married director Paul Almond [1931- ] in 1967. They had one child and divorced in 1973. Two remarkable appearances - first as Shaw's “Saint Joan” on television in 1967, then as Anne Boleyn in her Hollywood debut role “Anne of the Thousand Days” (1969), introduced Bujold to American audiences and yielded Emmy and Oscar nominations respectively. Immediately after “Anne of the Thousand Days”, while under contract with Universal, she opted out of a planned “Mary, Queen of Scots” (1971), prompting the studio to sue her for $750,000. Rather than pay, she went to Greece to film “The Trojan Women” (1971) with Katharine Hepburn. Her virtuoso performance as the mad seer Cassandra led critic Pauline Kael to prophesy prodigies ahead but to assuage Universal, Bujold eventually returned to Hollywood to make “Earthquake”, co-starring Charlton Heston. A host of other films of varying quality followed but she managed nevertheless to transcend the material and deliver performances with her trademark combination of ferocious intensity and childlike vulnerability. In the 1980s she found her way to director Alan Rudolphs nether world and joined his film family for three movies including the memorable “Choose Me” (1984). Highlights of recent work are her brave performance in the David Cronenberg film “Dead Ringers” (1988) and a lovely turn in the autumnal romance “Les noces de papier” (1990) (TV). Geneviève made one Euro-western Claude Lelouch’s “Another Man, Another Chance” (1977) with James Caan. Today we celebrate Geneviève Bujold’s 70^th birthday.