GENEVIEVE BUJOLD Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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GENEVIEVE BUJOLD

Name: Genevieve  Bujold                                                                 
Born: 1 July 1942 Montreal, Quebec, Canada                                               
                                                                                         
Geneviève Bujold (born July 1, 1942 in Montreal, Quebec) is an Oscar-nominated         
Canadian actress.                                                                       
                                                                                         
Related to 19th century Quebec strongman/weightlifter Louis Cyr, Bujold was             
raised by strict Roman Catholic French-Canadian parents who sent her to a               
convent school for her full 12 years of education. She disliked the school and           
its strict discipline, and eventually left it to pursue an acting career.               
                                                                                         
Dramatically trained at Montreal's Conservatory of Dramatic Art, she got her big         
break while on tour with a theatrical company in Paris, when French director             
Alain Resnais selected her for a role opposite Yves Montand in La Guerre est             
finie (1966). This led to her staying in France for a time where she made more           
films with noted French directors such as Louis Malle.                                   
                                                                                         
Bujold appeared in a variety of film roles for Canadian and U.S. television             
earning a 1967 Emmy Award nomination for her performance as Joan of Arc in an           
NBC "Hallmark Hall of Fame" presentation. That year, she married Canadian film           
director Paul Almond, who directed her in Isabel (1968), and Act of the Heart (1970),   
opposite Donald Sutherland. They had a son, Matthew, in 1968 and were divorced           
in 1972. Also in 1968, she won the Prix Suzanne Bianchetti as the most promising         
young actress in French film.                                                           
                                                                                         
In 1969, she starred opposite Richard Burton in the film Anne of the Thousand           
Days. For her performance, she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a         
motion-picture drama as well as a nomination for the Academy Award for Best             
Actress.                                                                                 
                                                                                         
Bujold was touted to become a star, but her temper led to run-ins with her               
employer Universal Studios and she walked away from her contract, resulting in a         
lawsuit (which was settled when she agreed to appear in the 1974 disaster film           
Earthquake). In the ensuing years she appeared in films such as The Trojan Women         
(1971, opposite Katharine Hepburn and Vanessa Redgrave), Kamouraska (1973),             
Brian De Palma's Obsession (1976), Alex and the Gypsy (1976, opposite Jack               
Lemmon), the medical thriller Coma (1978, opposite Michael Douglas), Choose Me (1984,   
directed by Alan Rudolph) and Tightrope (1984, starring Clint Eastwood). She won         
the Best Actress in a Leading Role Genie Award for Murder by Decree (1979).             
                                                                                         
In 1994, she signed on to play the lead character, Captain Nicole Janeway, in           
the American television series Star Trek: Voyager. However she dropped out after         
filming just a few scenes of the series' first episode. She cited a number of           
reasons, including a TV series work schedule being too demanding, differences           
with the producers how to play the character and even claiming she was offended         
that producers wanted her to "pad" her uniform to give Janeway a more attractive         
figure for the Star Trek's predominantly male fan base. Kate Mulgrew replaced           
her and the character's name was changed to Kathryn Janeway.                             
                                                                                         
Bujold — who spent several years away from her acting career after giving birth       
to a second son, Emmanuel, in 1980 (she re-emerged in the 1984 Alan Rudolph film         
Choose Me) — continues to work in film, primarily with independent production         
companies.