Tonie Marshall

Tonie Marshall
Tonie Marshall in 2012
Born	(1951-11-29)29 November 1951 Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
Died	12 March 2020 (aged 68)
Occupation	Actress Film director Screenwriter
Years active	1971–2020

Tonie Marshall (29 November 1951 – 12 March 2020)^[1][2] was a French-American actress, screenwriter, and film director. In 2000, she became the first female director to win a César award.

Life and career[]

Marshall was the daughter of American actor William Marshall and French actress Micheline Presle, the half-sister of actor Mike Marshall, and the aunt of model and actress Sarah Marshall.

In 1971, Tonie Marshall started her career as actress in television. In 1973, she interpreted a minor role in A Slightly Pregnant Man. In 1989, she made her debut as director with the film Pentimento.

After acting in several of Jacques Demy's films, including A Slightly Pregnant Man and La Naissance du Jour, Marshall cites to have taken influence from his direction in the sense of creating whimsical atmospheres and rooting the stories with more of a female-centric narrative.

In 1994, her film Pas très catholique was entered into the 44th Berlin International Film Festival.^[3]

Her 1999 film Venus Beauty Institute (Vénus beauté (institut)) won the 2000 César Award for Best Film and she won the César Award for Best Director and for Best Writing – Original or Adaptation, becoming the first female director to receive this distinction.^[2] For writing the film, she researched in a real beauty salon.

In 2002 her film Au plus près du paradis was nominated for the Golden Lion Award as best film at the Venice Film Festival.

Marshall was a signatory of the "Free Roman Polanski" petition following film director Roman Polanski's arrest in Switzerland in 2009.^[4]

In 2017, Marshall released her last feature film Woman Up!. For the film, she researched female corporative world through in-depth discussions.^[2]

Filmography[]

Marshall achieved a prominent role in the French film industry, dominated mainly by men.^[5] In her most notable film, Venus Beauty Institute, Marshall touched on the theme of finding love from a female perspective, and how it can fundamentally be more difficult because of how it strays from the traditional dynamic of courtship. She explained how "in a practical sense, it’s complicated to have abandon [oneself] into a man’s arms and, at the same time, stay very tough because you have to work…".^[6] This carefully expresses the vulnerabilities women endure when heavily committing to relationships, similar to much of Demy's work, including The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort.

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tonie Marshall.

• Tonie Marshall at IMDb
• Tonie Marshall at Allocine (French language)