Nathalie Baye, who starred in some 80 films over a career spanning five decades, has died at the age of 77, her family announced on Saturday. She had been suffering from a form of dementia.
Baye died on Friday evening at her home in Paris, her family told French news agency AFP.
She suffered from Lewy body dementia, a neurodegenerative disease that can cause confusion, difficulty moving, depression and hallucinations. Her last acting credit was in 2023, and she had not been seen in public for several months.
Baye won a string of awards during her 50-year career, including four Césars, France's highest film honour.
French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to a stalwart of French cinema. Baye was "an actress with whom we loved, dreamed, and grew up", he posted on X.
Culture Minister Catherine Pégard told AFP that Baye had "lit up a long chapter in the history of French cinema with her talent and radiant personality".
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From Normandy to Hollywood
Born to artist parents in Normandy on 6 July 1948, she trained as a dancer before studying acting in Paris.
She got her break playing a script girl in the 1973 comedy Day for Night by François Truffaut, and went on to work with some of France's best-known directors, including Jean-Luc Godard, Maurice Pialat and Claude Chabrol.
In 2002, she played a memorable supporting role as conman Leonardo DiCaprio's mother in Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can. Other English-language roles included a French aristocrat in the 2022 sequel to Downtown Abbey.
Canadian director Xavier Dolan also cast her as complicated mothers in two of his films, Laurence Anyways and It's Only the End of the World.
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While most of her work was in film, Baye also performed on stage and TV. In 2015, she played a version of herself in the hit Netflix series Call My Agent, appearing alongside her real-life daughter Laura Smet – also a well-known actress, whose father was the singer Johnny Hallyday.
Baye had a four-year relationship with him in the 1980s, making her a target for the paparazzi, and afterwards guarded her private life from the press.
However, she publicly supported causes including tackling climate change and reforming France's laws on assisted dying.
"My greatest source of pride is having managed to live in harmony with my little dreams," AFP quoted her as saying.
