Brigitte Fossey: from the Martinez pontoon to the red carpet, she tells us

LL Published on 08/16/2025 at 11:10, updated on 08/16/2025 at 11:10

While waiting to see her again in Léo Mattéi with Jean-Luc Reichmann on TF1, Brigitte Fossey stopped off on the pontoon of the Martinez, where she shared some seaside memories with us. Photos Patrice Lapoirie **Patrice Lapoirie / Nice Matin**

In the iridescent light bathing the Bay of Cannes at the start of the evening, she appears, surrounded by her blond hair. Clearly delighted to find ourselves, at her request, on the Martinez beach, on this pontoon linked for her to a high point in her childhood: "It's one of my best memories of Cannes, because it's here that I did my first strokes," she rewinds . "I was eighteen months old the first time I came here with my parents, to my uncle and aunt's at the Villa Mélite [a residence located in the Basse Californie district of Cannes, Editor's note]. Being from Tourcoing, I immediately felt an overwhelming heat here, I was literally suffocating. So as soon as I was taken to the beach and put my feet in the water, it was a liberation. And very quickly, I wanted to learn to swim, from the age of three, because I already had a fiercely independent character!"

The youngest swimmer in France, at Martinez

And to bring back a host of sensations and images: "I still remember my discovery of the sand, the warm water in which I paddled. I took lessons here, on the Martinez pontoon, at the same time as my mother who didn't know how to swim either, with a certain Mr. Shoebel, a very great swimming instructor. Thanks to him, after a month, I passed a competition, and I became the youngest swimmer in France! And every time I come back here, I fall back into childhood."

The cast of " Forbidden Games" at the Hôtel du Rhul in Nice

It was also during one of her stays in Cannes that this decidedly precocious child would become the unforgettable Paulette in Jeux interdits (1952), René Clément's masterpiece, thanks to an advertisement in Nice-Matin: "My aunt saw this advertisement indicating that this director was looking for a little girl. She immediately said to my mother: if René Clément sees her, he'll take her. To which my mother replied: Mauricette, I bet you a hundred francs that he won't!" The rest, as we know, would prove Brigitte Fossey's aunt right. With a career spanning more than seven decades, she now even has the longest career in French cinema. However, when the 5-year-old girl showed up at the Rhul Hotel in Nice, where the casting was being held in the Casino room, the bet was far from won: "René Clément was looking for a little girl between 9 and 11 years old. So I was really too young. But he was very surprised to discover that I already knew how to read and write, since I had learned at the age of three and a half, and to tell a story very correctly, even crying if I was asked to!"

First cultural excitement in Cannes

A baby star was born. Who, during her stays in Cannes, did not hesitate to go to the cinema alone, dressed in a raffia skirt, to see films like High Society or Singin' in the Rain and the stars of the time: Grace Kelly, Leslie Caron, Gene Kelly. On the reading side, the one who would later do Khâgne and Hypokhâgne was not to be outdone. Her first literary emotion: The Hare and the Tortoise , told in prose (in a children's collection) and not in verse as in the fables of La Fontaine. "I was all the more delighted because I had two tortoises in the gardens of the Villa Mélite: Nénette and Rintintin." She devoured the books of the Countess of Ségur, or adventure stories.

Reading with music

"I loved it, I was traveling! And when I do my readings in public, I try to rediscover this passionate side, to create suspense with the music. There, on the occasion of the reading that I will do of L'éducation sentimentale , by Flaubert, at the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, where I am delighted to return, there will be the beginning (recorded) of Bach's La fantaisie chromatique by the pianist Jean-Frédéric Neuberger, and the beginning of Chopin's La grande polonaise. That of Rachmaninoff's Prelude No. 8, also performed by my virtuoso friend Fanny Azzuro. Then a 25-minute intermission during which the public will be able to admire the collections of the Villa, before attending a fabulous ballet on the theme of love." The choreographer Gaël Rougegrez will offer an intense closed-door performance: AMOUR h. Between musical reading and contemporary dance, a beautiful range of emotions...

Brigitte Fossey - Flaubert & GR Infini-AMOUR h Tuesday, August 19 at 8 p.m. Villa Éphrussi de Rothschild in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. Prices: 35 euros (20 euros for ages 7-17) / 60 euros with picnic basket. Info. 04.93.01.33.09. www.villa-ephrussi.com

A great reader before the Eternal, Brigitte Fossey, shared with us her favorites. While confiding in us: "What fascinates me in literature is this transcendence of the word and language. It's the same thing with poems, and I have to make a record next year with a poet. I would have especially wanted to be a writer. My parents pushed me to go to a school for performers in Geneva. And finally I played very romantic characters. From then on, I knew that I would no longer be able to write, because I would put all my passion into these interpretations." 1. The Sentimental Education of Flaubert and Moby Dick:

"It's one of my favorite novels. Pure genius, the story of this boy who, coming from his province, falls madly in love on the boat with a Parisian woman, in the same way that Flaubert fell madly in love with a young woman he saw bathing on the beach at Trouville, when he was only 14 years old! As for Moby Dick, it is the world of the sea, and an allegory of revenge, which demonstrates, through the negative, what the positive side of forgiveness is."

2. The great Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier:

"While preparing for the role of Yvonne de Galais, I discovered that this book was inspired by a true story. Alain-Fournier fell in love with a young girl as she left the church in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. He followed her to the bus, jumped onto the platform and said to her: “You are beautiful, I would like to see you again.” And the attractive stranger, whose name was Yvonne, always replied “What’s the point?” because she was engaged. When Alain Fournier saw her again 8 years later, she was married. What fascinates me about literature is that there is always this inspiration from reality, transcended by the writing of Flaubert or Alain-Fournier, Dostoyevsky (The Idiot) or Malcolm Lowry, author of Under the Volcano."

3). My spiritual ABC:

"When a friend of Cherche-midi publishers asked me to write a book about my life, I didn't want to! I was more interested in talking about the authors who helped me live, like Maria Rilke, Nietzsche, Pascal, Mozart, Beethoven, Saint Therese of Lisieux, the four Gospels. And I have to read as a jury of "Nohee", The Dream of the Jaguar (Miguel Bonnefoy), Madeleine Before Dawn (Sandrine Colette) and My Grandmother and the Land of Poetry (Minh Tran Huy).