Anna Karina (born Hanne Karin Blarke Bayer; 22 September 1940 – 14 December 2019) was a Danish-French film actress, director, writer, model, and singer. She was French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard's collaborator in the 1960s, performing in several of his films, including The Little Soldier, A Woman Is a Woman, My Life to Live, (Band of Outsiders), , and Alphaville. For her performance in A Woman Is a Woman, Karina won the Silver Bear Award for Best Actress at the Berlin Film Festival.
In 1972, Karina set up a production company for Vivre ensemble (1973), her directorial debut, which screened in the Critics' Week lineup at the 26th Cannes Film Festival. She also directed the French-Canadian film Victoria (2008). In addition to her work in cinema, she worked as a singer and wrote several novels.
Karina was an icon of 1960s cinema, and referred to as the "effervescent free spirit of the French New Wave, with all of the scars that the position entails". The New York Times described her as "one of the screen's great beauties and an enduring symbol of the French New Wave."
Early life
Hanne Karin Blarke Bayer was born on 22 September 1940 in Frederiksberg, Denmark. Her mother was a dress shop owner and her father was a ship captain who left the family a year after she was born.
She lived with her maternal grandparents for four years, then spent the next four years in foster care before returning to live with her mother and her abusive step-father when she was eight. As a child, her mother belittled her appearance, and told her that her eyes and forehead were too big. She has described her childhood as "terribly wanting to be loved", as she felt unwanted and unloved. She made numerous attempts to run away from home, trying to find boats that would take her to Sweden or America. She dreamt of becoming an actor from a young age and wanted to attend drama school but at the time the age requirement for Danish drama schools was 21.
As a student, she rarely attended school and when she achieved good grades in her certificate exams, her school refused to believe she had done so without cheating. The injustice made her leave school at the age of 14.
Career
Beginnings and modeling
After leaving school, she went on to find work as a lift operator in a department store and as an assistant to an illustrator.
She began her professional career in Denmark, where she sang in cabarets and worked as a model playing in commercials. Aged 14, she was spotted in the street by Ib Schmedes, who cast her as the lead in his forty-minute short film Pigen og skoene (The Girl and The Shoes, 1959), which won a prize at Cannes. However, as things didn't seem to be going well at home, where in an evening her step-father beat her very badly, she decided to leave. With the equivalent of $15, which she'd received from her grandfather, she hitchhiked to Paris. She has said that although she grew up in Denmark, she was “fascinated” by France and after traveling to Paris at age 14, she wanted to go back and live there.
In the summer of 1958, aged 17, Karina arrived in Paris. With only 10,000 francs and unable to speak French, she struggled to find a place to stay and had to ask neighborhood priests for somewhere to sleep. Finally, a young priest found her a small room on the rue Pavée, just behind the Bastille. One day, while starving and wandering through Paris, she found herself in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. She sat down at Les Deux Magots café, where a woman called Catherine Harlé approached her and asked her if she would be willing to do some photos. Suspicious at first, Karina finally agreed when she found out it was a professional shoot for the French newspaper Jours de France. After finishing the shoot, Harlé, although telling Karina that she wasn't very talented, gave her some contacts.
She began to work as a model and eventually became successful, posing for several magazines, including Elle, and meeting Pierre Cardin and Coco Chanel. Karina has said that when she met Chanel on the set of the Elle photoshoot, Chanel told her: “I believe you want to be an actress… You need to learn French. What’s your name little girl?” “Hanne Karin Bayer.” Karina replied. And Chanel said: “No: Anna Karina – call yourself that.” It was deliberately coined to evoke Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina. She also appeared in commercials for products such as Coca-Cola, Pepsodent, and Palmolive. She was still underage but received enough money to find herself a place to stay. And as she still wanted to attend drama school, she sat in movie theaters and watched French movies to teach herself the language.