Roger Vadim (26 January 1928 - 11 February 2000) was a French screenwriter, film director and producer, as well as an author and occasional actor. His best-known works are visually lavish films with erotic qualities, such as And God Created Woman, Barbarella, and Pretty Maids All in a Row.

Early life

Vadim was born as Roger Vladimir Plemiannikov in Paris. His father, Igor Nikolaevich Plemiannikov (И́горь Никола́евич Племя́нников), a White Russian military officer and pianist, had emigrated from Ukraine and became a naturalized French citizen, and was a vice consul of France to Egypt, stationed in Alexandria. His mother, Marie-Antoinette (née Ardilouze), was a French actress. Although Vadim lived in luxury in his early youth, the death of his father, when Vadim was nine years old, caused the family to return to France, where his mother found work running a hostel in the French Alps, which was functioning as a way-station for Jews and other fugitives fleeing Nazism.

Vadim studied journalism and writing at the University of Paris, without graduating. At age 19, he became assistant to film director Marc Allégret, whom he met while working at the Theatre Sarah Bernhardt, and for whom he worked on several screenplays.

Romances

Vadim was celebrated for his romances/marriages to beautiful actresses. He lived with Catherine Deneuve, then a teenage starlet nearly half his age, by whom he had a child, Christian Vadim, prior to his marriage to Fonda. He was also involved with actress Cindy Pickett. Later, he lived with screenwriter Ann Biderman for several years, announcing their engagement in 1984, but the couple never wed.

He told a story about how he lost his virginity. When he was 16, he spent the summer in Normandy, where an older girl took a fancy to him. Out of doors that night, she introduced him to the art of love and what amazed him most was that what Hemingway had written came true--"the earth moved under him". Not until somewhat later did he realize that Allied ships were bombarding the coast in preparation for the D-day invasion.

Marriages

• Brigitte Bardot, 20 December 1952 - 6 December 1957 (divorced)
• Annette Stroyberg, 17 June 1958 - 1961 (divorced); 1 daughter (Nathalie)
• Jane Fonda, 14 August 1965 - 16 January 1973 (divorced); 1 daughter (Vanessa)
• Catherine Schneider, 13 December 1975 - 1977 (divorced); 1 son (Vania)
• Marie-Christine Barrault, 21 December 1990 - 11 February 2000 (his death)

He also had two stepsons from his marriage to Schneider (heiress to the Schneider-Creusot steel and armaments firm) as well as a stepson and stepdaughter from Barrault's first marriage to Daniel Toscan du Plantier, also a friend of Vadim's, who called him "a happy man. He was someone in whom there was so much satisfaction to the end of his life. The films merely reflected his happiness." Nathalie, his eldest child, told Fonda biographer Patricia Bosworth: "Jane was the love of my father's life."

Writing

In addition to Vadim's theatre and film work, he also wrote several books, including an autobiography, D'une étoile à l'autre (From One Star to the Next) as well as a tell-all about his most famous exes, Bardot, Deneuve & Fonda: My Life with the Three Most Beautiful Women in the World, published in 1986. "My attitude is that if this book makes me a little money it will be a tiny compensation for all the money I helped those actresses make," Vadim explained. They were not pleased. "I despise this book. It's a money book. And it's so badly written," said Deneuve. She and Bardot each sued Vadim for invasion of privacy. Fonda wrote in her 2005 memoir, My Life So Far, "I was flabbergasted to find that he had portrayed himself as the faithful husband, cuckolded by me at the end of our marriage."

Death

Vadim died of cancer at age 72 on 11 February 2000. He was survived by his widow, Marie-Christine Barrault, and his four children (Nathalie, Vanessa, Christian and Vania). Ex-wives Bardot, Fonda, Schneider and Stroyberg were all in attendance at his funeral. Ex-companions Biderman and Deneuve did not attend. He is interred at St. Tropez Cemetery.

Filmography

Writer/director

• The Naked Heart (1950)
• Blackmailed (1951)
• En Effeuillant la Marguerite/Mademoiselle Striptease (1956)
• And God Created Woman (1956)
• Sait-on jamais? (1957)
• Sois belle et tais-toi/Be Beautiful but Shut up (1957)
• Les Bijoutiers du Clair de Lune/The Night Heaven Fell (1958)
• Les liaisons dangereuses/Dangerous Liaisons (1959)
• Blood and Roses (1960)
• La Bride sur le cou/Please Not Now! (1961)
• Les Sept péchés capitaux/Seven Capital Sins (1962)
• Les Parisiennes/Beds and Broads (1962)
• Le Repos du guerrier (fr)/Love on a Pillow (1962)
• Un château en Suède/Castle in Sweden (1963)
• Le vice et la vertu/Vice and Virtue (1963)
• La Ronde/Circle of Love (1964)
• La Curée/The Game is Over (1966)
• Spirits of the Dead (1968)
• Barbarella (1968)
• Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971)
• Hellé (1972)
• Don Juan ou Si Don Juan était une femme (1973)
• La jeune fille Assassinée/The Murdered Young Girl (1974)
• Une femme fidèle (1976)
• Bonheur, impair et passe (1977)
• Jeux de Nuit/Night Games (1980)
• The Hot Touch (1981)
• Surprise Party (1983)
• Faerie Tale Theatre (1984 TV, segment "Beauty and the Beast")
• The Hitchhiker (1986 TV, segment "Dead Man's Curve")
• And God Created Woman (remake) (1988)
• Safari (1991, TV movie)
• Amour fou (1993, TV movie)
• La Nouvelle tribu (1996, TV mini-series)
• Mon père avait raison (1996, TV movie)
• Un coup de baguette magique (1997, TV movie)

Actor

• School for Love (1955)
• Sweet and Sour (1963)
• Ciao! Manhattan (1972)
• The Assassinated Young Girl (1974)
• Rich and Famous (1981)
• Into the Night (1985)

[ Source: Wikipedia ]