42 Facts About Jean Seberg

1.

Jean Seberg was among the best-known targets of the FBI's COINTELPRO project.

2.

Jean Seberg's targeting was in retaliation for her support of the Black Panther Party, a smear directly ordered by J Edgar Hoover.

3.

Jean Seberg died at the age of 40 in Paris, the French police ruling her death a probable suicide.

4.

Jean Seberg's family was Lutheran and of Swedish, English, and German ancestry.

5.

Jean Seberg had a sister, Mary-Ann, and two brothers, Kurt and David, the younger of whom was killed in a car accident at the age of 18 in 1968.

6.

Jean Seberg made her film debut in the title role of Joan of Arc in Saint Joan, based on the George Bernard Shaw play, having been chosen from among 18,000 hopefuls by director Otto Preminger in a $150,000 talent search.

7.

When she was cast on October 21,1956, Jean Seberg's only acting experience had been a single season of summer stock performances.

8.

Jean Seberg renegotiated her contract with Preminger and signed a long-term contract with Columbia Pictures.

9.

Jean Seberg was extremely sad too about it and when we all arrived on the set of Bonjour Tristesse she carried on her shoulders the weight of guilt, she was scared.

10.

Jean Seberg appeared as the female lead in Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless as Patricia, co-starring with Jean-Paul Belmondo.

11.

In France, after appearing in Time Out for Love, Jean Seberg took the lead role in Moreuil's directorial debut, Love Play.

12.

Jean Seberg appeared in the anthology film The World's Most Beautiful Swindlers and Backfire, which reunited her with Jean-Paul Belmondo.

13.

Jean Seberg starred with Warren Beatty in the American film Lilith for Columbia, which prompted the critics to acknowledge Jean Seberg as a serious actress.

14.

Jean Seberg returned to France to make romantic crime drama Diamonds Are Brittle.

15.

In 1966 and 1967, Jean Seberg played the leading roles in two French films directed by Claude Chabrol and co-starring Maurice Ronet.

16.

Jean Seberg starred in the ensemble disaster film Airport, which drew mixed reviews but was a huge success at the box office.

17.

Jean Seberg was Francois Truffaut's first choice for the central role of Julie in Day for Night, but after several fruitless attempts to contact her, he gave up and cast British actress Jacqueline Bisset instead.

18.

Jean Seberg remained active during the 1970s in European films, appearing in Bianchi cavalli d'Agosto, Le Grand Delire and Die Wildente.

19.

In 1970, the FBI created a false story from a San Francisco-based informant that the child whom Jean Seberg was carrying was not fathered by her husband, Romain Gary, but by Raymond Hewitt, a member of the Black Panther Party.

20.

Jean Seberg held a funeral in her hometown with an open casket that allowed reporters to see the infant's white skin in order to disprove the rumors.

21.

Jean Seberg contended that she had become so upset after reading the story that she went into premature labor, which resulted in the death of her daughter.

22.

The Jean Seberg investigation went far beyond the publication of defamatory articles.

23.

At the peak of her career, Jean Seberg suddenly stopped acting in Hollywood films.

24.

Jean Seberg was not offered any great Hollywood roles, regardless of their size.

25.

Experts on the FBI's actions in the COINTELPRO project suggest that Jean Seberg was "effectively blacklisted" from Hollywood films.

26.

On September 5,1958, at the age of 19, Jean Seberg married Francois Moreuil, a French lawyer in her native Marshalltown, having met him in France 15 months earlier.

27.

On living in France for a period of time, Jean Seberg said in an interview:.

28.

Jean Seberg gave birth to their son, Alexandre Diego Gary, in Barcelona on July 17,1962.

29.

Jean Seberg filed for divorce in September 1968, and the divorce was finalized on July 1,1970.

30.

Jean Seberg reportedly had affairs with co-stars Warren Beatty, Clint Eastwood, Fabio Testi, and with filmmaker Ricardo Franco.

31.

Jean Seberg gave birth to their daughter, Nina Hart Gary, on August 23,1970.

32.

The baby died two days later on August 25,1970, as a result of complications sustained when Jean Seberg overdosed on sleeping pills during her pregnancy.

33.

Ex-husband Gary assumed responsibility for the pregnancy, but Jean Seberg acknowledged that Ornelas was the father.

34.

In 1979, while still legally married to her estranged husband Berry, Jean Seberg went through "a form of marriage" to Algerian Ahmed Hasni.

35.

Jean Seberg claimed that she had attempted suicide in July 1979 by jumping in front of a Paris subway train.

36.

Police found a bottle of barbiturates, an empty mineral water bottle, and a note written in French by Jean Seberg addressed to her son.

37.

Jean Seberg is interred at the Cimetiere du Montparnasse in Paris.

38.

Police stated that Jean Seberg had such a high amount of alcohol in her system at the time of her death that it would have rendered her comatose and unable to enter her car without assistance, and no alcohol was found in the car.

39.

Jean Seberg's suicide note, addressed to his publisher, indicated that he had not killed himself over the loss of Seberg, but because he could no longer produce literary works.

40.

The plot of the 1998 film Black Tears, starring Ariadna Gil, is reportedly inspired by Jean Seberg's reported affair with Ricardo Franco.

41.

The 2000 short film Je t'aime John Wayne is a tribute parody of Breathless, with Jean Seberg played by Camilla Rutherford.

42.

In 2019, Amazon released an original film based on Jean Seberg's life called Jean Seberg that focuses on her battle against the FBI, with the title role played by Kristen Stewart.