Not only has Marianne Gray done her homework, researching the career of the ultra cool French actress with meticulous attention to detail, but she writes well enough to make a page turner of what, despite its surface glamour, has really been a low key sort of life. Moreau, of course, makes a splendid subject, with her outspoken views on life and love, her glamorous ex-lovers and, of course, those films. Gray produces some delightfully gossipy stills from each one, coming up with some unexpected angles in the process a boyish Orson Welles hiding his make up under a chair so as to avoid shooting his own scenes in Chimes at Midnight, aka Falstaff, Moreau cooking lunch daily for the cast and crew of Jules et Jim the studied cool of Jean Marc Bory, Moreau's partner for the notorious red hot love scene in the bath during Les Amants. "He appeared on set when he was called," recalled Moreau. "The rest of the time he was sleeping or sunbathing."
