In Cannes, May 18, 2012. RICHARD DUMAS/AGENCE VU’ FOR LE MONDE
Nathalie Baye, a French actress nominated seven times for the César Award for Best Actress, which she won twice, and twice a winner of the César for Best Supporting Actress, died at the age of 77, her family announced to Agence France-Presse on Saturday, April 18. She had been in poor health and in a worrying condition since the summer of 2025, and died on Friday evening at her Paris home from Lewy body disease, according to her family. The neurodegenerative disease causes symptoms similar to both Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Baye had appeared in around one hundred films.
Which role and character stand out the most is a matter of taste. Perhaps you loved her as the cheeky beautician, surrounded by nail polish bottles and uninhibited clients, in Vénus Beauté (Institut) (Venus Beauty Institute), directed by Tonie Marshall (1951-2020), a role that earned her an award in Seattle in 2000. Or perhaps you preferred her in Le Retour de Martin Guerre (The Return of Martin Guerre), directed by Daniel Vigne, in 1982, as the peasant woman convinced of adultery in 16th-century France after sharing her bed with an impostor pretending to be her husband (a role reprised a decade later by Jodie Foster).
