Jacqueline Bisset?qsrc=3044

Jacqueline Bisset
Bisset at the 1989 Academy Awards
Born	Winnifred Jacqueline Fraser-Bisset 13 September 1944 (1944-09-13) (age 65) Weybridge, Surrey, England, UK
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1965–present

Jacqueline Bisset (born 13 September 1944) is an English actress. She has been nominated for four Golden Globe Awards and an Emmy Award. She is known for her roles in the films Bullitt (1968), Airport (1970), The Deep (1977), Class (1983), and the TV series Nip/Tuck in 2006. She has also appeared in several French productions and was nominated for a César Award for La cérémonie (1995).

Early life and family

Bisset was born Winnifred Jacqueline Fraser-Bisset in Weybridge, Surrey, England, the daughter of Arlette Alexander, a lawyer turned homemaker, and Max Fraser-Bisset, a general practitioner.^[1] She was brought up in Tilehurst, Berkshire. Her father was Scottish and her mother was of French and English descent;^[2][3] Bisset's mother cycled from Paris and boarded a British troop transport to escape the Germans during World War II.^[4] Bisset has a brother, Max Fraser-Bisset. Her mother taught her to speak French fluently, and she was educated at the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle in London. She had taken ballet lessons as a child and now began taking acting lessons and fashion modeling to pay for them. When Bisset was a teenager, her mother was diagnosed with disseminating sclerosis. In the following years while Bisset was working as an actress in Hollywood, she made frequent trips back home in order to care for her mother, which she says got in the way of her personal relationships.^[5]

Bisset's parents divorced in 1968, after 28 years of marriage.^[4] Her father died aged 71 of a brain tumour in 1982. Her mother died in 1999.^[6]

Career

Bisset made her screen debut with a bit part in The Knack ...and How to Get It (1965). Her first speaking role was in the 1966 film Cul de Sac, starring Donald Pleasence and directed by Roman Polanski. She was cast in the romance film Two for the Road (1967) starring Audrey Hepburn, and played her first lead role opposite James Brolin in The Cape Town Affair (1967). She participated in the 1966 James Bond satire, Casino Royale, as Miss Goodthighs. In 1968, she replaced Mia Farrow to star opposite Frank Sinatra in The Detective; Farrow and Sinatra had split shortly before production began and the role was given to Bisset, who received special billing in the film's credits.

Bisset's breakout role was as Steve McQueen's girlfriend in the hit action film Bullitt, also released in 1968. The following year she received her first Golden Globe nomination as New Star of the Year for her performance in The Sweet Ride, and played her first sexy "older woman" (at 25) in The First Time (1969).^[7] She was one of the many stars in the blockbuster disaster film Airport (1970), a Best Picture nominee in which she acted opposite Dean Martin and Helen Hayes. She co-starred with Sean Connery in Murder on the Orient Express (1974).

Bisset made strides towards becoming a better-known entertainer in America with The Deep (1977), co-starring Robert Shaw and Nick Nolte and directed by Peter Yates, who had previously directed her in Bullitt. A scene of her swimming underwater wearing only a thin, white T-shirt and bikini bottom helped make the film a box office success, leading the producer Peter Guber to say, "That T-shirt made me a rich man,"^[8]. At the time, Newsweek declared her "the most beautiful film actress of all time." About that time, a small film Bisset had made six years earlier was re-released in the United States under the title Secrets. That movie featured the only extensive nude scenes of Bisset's career and the producers cashed in on her fame. She earned a Golden Globe nomination for the comedy Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (1978).

Soon thereafter, she starred in the movies Rich and Famous (1981) with Candice Bergen, Class (1983) (playing a woman who seduces her son's best friend) co-starring Rob Lowe and Andrew McCarthy, and Under the Volcano (1984), for which she earned her a second Golden Globe nomination. Bisset often appeared with her leading men in more than one film. She was cast as Paul Newman's daughter in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, then as his girlfriend in When Time Ran Out. Bisset has also worked Albert Finney, Mickey Rourke, Anthony Perkins, and Michael York on multiple occasions. Bisset has worked with such directors as François Truffaut, John Huston, Stanley Donen, Sidney Lumet and George Cukor. Several of her older movies are French or Italian productions.

Bisset has appeared in many made-for-TV and independent films, especially in recent years. In 1996, she was nominated for a César Award, for her role in La Cérémonie. She received Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominations for the 1999 miniseries Joan of Arc. Other notable projects include the acclaimed Biblical epics Jesus (1999) and In the Beginning (2000) with Martin Landau. She made guest appearances on Ally McBeal during 2001–2002, and Law and Order: Special Victims Unit in 2003. One of her later TV movies, in 2003, was America's Prince: The John F. Kennedy Jr. Story, in which she portrayed Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. In 2005, she appeared in the action movie Domino with Keira Knightley. Bisset's most recent television work was a recurring role as the mysterious James, during the fourth season of the FX series Nip/Tuck in 2006. More recently she starred in An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving, which premiered on the Hallmark Channel on November 22, 2008.

Personal life

Jaqueline Bisset at the premiere of Bette Midler's movie The Rose, 1979

Bisset is godmother to actress Angelina Jolie. She appeared with Jolie in the film Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005); however, their scenes together were deleted during postproduction.

Unlike many actresses of her generation who have difficulty finding work after 40, Bisset has made a seamless transition from leading lady to character actor. She remains in demand in Hollywood and Europe. She told a Bermuda newspaper in 2004:^[9]

This film business, perhaps more so in America than in Europe, has always been about young sexuality. It's not true of theatre, but in America, film audiences are young and they go to the cinema to see the sort of romance or adventure that appeals to them. It's not an intellectual cinema in America. But one mustn't be too greedy. One wants to be stimulated by the work as long as there is something to give. I think you have to be as flexible as possible. Perhaps you don't get handed the big American productions, but, quite honestly, who would want to be in a lot of them? Many of them are just puerile teenage filler, and they're not fascinating to be in. To be used in a part without depth is a frustrating feeling, when you know you have something to give, and the camera just sort of brushes past you, and doesn't get what you have to give. Most actresses I know are frustrated, but you have to adapt to the reality. I go and find a small part in something I find interesting, or find an independent film"

Bisset has never married though she has had several lengthy romances. These include one with the Russian-American dancer and actor Alexander Godunov.^[10] “I feel like I was married to them because I was very dedicated to them,” she said in a 2008 interview. “But I also used to feel claustrophobic. Like many people who don’t easily commit, I think I had a fear of being known; I was not sure there was anybody inside there.”^[11]

She divides her time between homes in England and Beverly Hills, California.

Bisset in popular culture

In the NBC TV show Cheers, the episode "Bar Bet" has Sam Malone faced with a bet made with an old drinking buddy a long time ago. The bet: he would marry Jacqueline Bisset by a certain date or lose his bar. Rather than losing the bet because he'd never marry the Jacqueline Bisset, or welching on the bet and having to admit under oath that he was drunk when he made the bet, he found an American with the same name and brought her back to Boston.

Bisset is mentioned in the Al Stewart song "Clifton in the Rain," in the line "Jacqueline Bisset, saw your movie. Wonder if you really felt that way. Do you ever fear the images of Hollywood?"

In Garry Shandling's TV show It's Garry Shandling's Show, a married friend confides that he keeps his sex life alive by thinking of his wife Jackie as Bisset. (She, in turn, thinks of him as Pete Rose.)

In Shandling's HBO TV show The Larry Sanders Show, producer Artie says he once dated Bisset.

In the popular television show The Practice, the episode "Judge and Jury" (Season 3, Episode 13) features the character Bobby Donnell, played by Dylan McDermott, admitting to have had sexual fantasies about older women, in particular, Jacqueline Bisset.

In the 1998 film 54, she is referenced by Ryan Phillippe's bartender character Shane O'Shea.

Filmography

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jaqueline Bisset

• Jacqueline Bisset at the Internet Movie Database
• Jacqueline Bisset at the TCM Movie Database
• Jacqueline Bisset interview
• Jacqueline Bisset Appreciation Page
• Jacqueline Bisset at TV.com