Actress Jacqueline Bisset to discuss new movie at Albany Film Fest
English actress Jacqueline Bisset has been an international film star since the late 1960s. The 79-year-old actress has starred alongside some of Hollywood’s greatest leading men such as Frank Sinatra, Steve McQueen and Paul Newman. She has also worked with such legendary film directors as John Huston, Francois Truffault, Roman Polanski and George Cukor, and yet the film people she reveres most are the screenwriters.
“You can’t make a film without writers,” she said in a recent phone call from her home in Beverly Hills. “My most recent film, ‘Loren & Rose’ had a fabulous script. It was intense, truthful, fun and deep. Before we filmed, I wasn’t so sure if I could do it, but it turned out to be such a pleasure. It’s so hard to find such a rewarding part. Some of my roles I only needed one or two of my acting gears, but for this role I needed to use all my gears.”
On Saturday, said film will be shown at the Albany Film Festival and Bisset, along with the film’s director Russell Brown, will appear to discuss it. The movie concerns two characters, a promising young film director and an iconic older actress, as they discuss the power of film, creativity and how fleeting life is. As the film progresses, and after many meals and discussions together, the pair forms a genuine and loving relationship based on good, honest conversation.
Over the course of nearly 60 years, and with a combination of intelligence, vulnerability and sexiness, British actress Jacqueline Bisset has been entertaining audiences between their first glimpse of her in 1965’s The Knack … and How to Get It all the way through 2023’s Last Dollar.
Born Winifred Jacqueline Fraser Bisset on September 13, 1944 in Weybridge, Surrey, England, she’s had an incredible career that has seen her co-starring on screen with everyone from Steve McQueen (Bullitt) to Frank Sinatra (The Detective), Dean Martin (Airport), Paul Newman (The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean), Sean Connery (Murder on the Orient Express) and Candice Bergen (Rich and Famous), the list going on from there.
Jacqueline Bisset has been seen in 70 movies throughout her career, 22 TV movies and in recurring roles on the television series Ally McBeal (2001 to 2002), Nip/Tuck (2006), Rizzoli & Isles (2011 to 2012) and Dancing on the Edge (2013).
Obviously fans know where she’s been, but how did she get her start? What led her from a childhood in the UK filled more with reading than going to the movies, to briefly becoming a model and then an actress who has sustained a six-decade career?
In the following Q&A, the answers of which have been culled from a variety of sources, Jacqueline Bisset reflects on the journey that took her from there to here, in her own words.
