François Truffaut

Truffaut learned the craft writing for Cahiers du Cinéma under Andre Bazin, where he argued that directors were the true authors of their films. He made the theory real with The 400 Blows in 1959, a semi-autobiographical story starring Jean-Pierre Léaud that became the New Wave's calling card and launched a decades-long chronicle of the same character, Antoine Doinel, through Stolen Kisses, Bed and Board, and Love on the Run. He worked on Breathless with Jean-Luc Godard, made Jules and Jim and Shoot the Piano Player, and spent a career in conversation with Hitchcock - writing the landmark book-length interview Hitchcock/Truffaut in 1966 and paying homage in The Bride Wore Black, Mississippi Mermaid, and his final film, Confidentially Yours. Day for Night won him the Oscar and BAFTA for Best Foreign Language Film in 1973; he acted in his own The Wild Child and The Green Room, and played the scientist in Spielberg's Close Encounters. He was married to Madeleine Morgenstern until 1964, engaged briefly to actress Claude Jade, and lived with Fanny Ardant until his death at 52.