Best of the Best Actress Nominees for 2007

Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose

I first saw Marion Cotillard as Fanny Chenal in Ridley Scott's A Good Year with Russell Crowe. Her character was very formulaic, but I was still captivated by her charisma. She had beautiful eyes and sharp wit that got my tail wagging, so to speak. I didn't think much about her. In fact, when I had heard about Marion's win for Best Actress at the Golden Globes and then her Oscar nomination for the French film, La Vie En Rose, I didn't recognize the name. Out of curiosity, I rented the film at my local Blockbuster video and threw it into my DVD player. I almost immediately recognized her face.

Marion Cotillard was born on September 30th, 1975 in Paris. She would grow up in an artistically inclined household near Orleans, Loiret. Acting runs in her family. Not only is her father, Jean-Claude an actor but her mother, Niseema is as well. Both of her twin brothers, Quentin and Guillaume have taken two very different paths. One is a sculptor/painter in San Francisco while the other is writer.

I didn't know anything about Edith Piaf when I agreed to watch La Vie En Rose. I also didn't know that it was a foreign film, a fact I quickly discovered as I watched the subtitles streaming along the bottom and the top of the screen. It turns out that many facts in the movie are not distorted. The real Edith Piaf or should I say, Edith Giovanna Gassion was raised in a Normandy brothel. She had gone blind for a time. She did start singing on the streets with her father. Only, Edith wasn't 9 but she was 14 when she started. She did have a child. Edith did finally get off the streets when Louis Leplee discovered her and put her on stage. There are many other facts just as well documented in La Vie En Rose. Unfortunately, we can only imagine what the real Edith Piaf was like in person. She died on October 11, 1963. The great thing is Marion Cotillard performs the role of Edith Piaf just as well - if not better than we can imagine.