Her father was a French restaurateur; her mother was a cabaret dancer from Oldham who moved to Paris in her 20s and later performed at the Folies Bergère.
In a 2001 interview with the Guardian, Moreau credited her mother’s heritage with influencing her own somewhat detached personality. “People in France could see I was different from the usual actresses of that time. Maybe that’s why I attracted so many Anglo-Saxon directors like Orson Welles and Tony Richardson. In French, one says ‘
Ma langue maternelle est le français [my mother tongue is French]
.’ But I say:
‘Ma langue maternelle est l’anglais.’ My feminine side is English,” she said.
