Nabilla and Thomas Vergara, Alain Delon and Romy Schneider, Hugh Grant and Liz Hurley, Carole Bouquet and Gérard Depardieu… A common point unites these couples, present or past: they have all, at some point in their history, walked the carpet red from the Cannes Film Festival. Since 1946, the year in which the first edition of this competition was organized, the seventh art has seen countless enamored duos pass through. Actors, directors, politicians, industrialists: if there is one place where glamor rhymes with love, it is the Croisette.
For many of them, in this world of artists where feelings are so changeable, passion has died out. But, immortalized by the photographers’ lenses, the image remained. Like the one shown to the world by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, a legendary couple who flaunted their passion on the Côte d’Azur in 2009 before acquiring a property there which is still the subject of a bitter battle. Like them, the pair formed by the cute Hugh Grant and the sublime Liz Hurley, has not resisted the wear and tear of time, even if they have remained very close. These two sex symbols from the end of the last century have not shared their lives for more than 20 years. However, they had a great time at the Cannes Film Festival. Let’s not even talk about Johnny Depp and Kate Moss, whose brief and passionate love story passed like a shooting star.
Charles and Diana display their lovelessness…
The big story is also sometimes invited into the little stories of Cannes. On May 16, 1987,The Palais des Festivals turns into a royal palace to welcome a prince and a princess: Charles and Lady Diana. In her pale blue dress, William and Harry’s mother shines. Camera flashes crackle. But the two heroes of the day seem distant. Behind the usual smiles, an intimate drama is playing out: Charles is already cheating on his wife with Camilla Parker-Bowles. And Lady Di is having an affair with her riding instructor James Hewit… Their love, that day, is just cinema.
Johnny Hallyday is one of the few stars to have come to the Croisette on the arm of several women. The French rock star appeared with Nathalie Baye in the 80s, with Adeline in the 90s and with Laeticia in the 2000s…
Other legendary couples ignited the festival: like Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg, who would be followed, years later, by their daughter Charlotte and her partner Yvan Attal who are still together today, even if they decided not to get married, proof that even in this environment, love can sometimes rhyme with always, or almost…
Fiery kisses for Virginie Efira and Niels Schneider
Like them, Marion Cotillard and Guillaume Canet, despite the difficulties they have gone through, are regulars on the Cannes red carpet. Another famous duo whose feelings defy time, Michaël Douglas and his sublime Catherine Zeta-Jones. Harrison Ford can also boast of making his beautiful story with Calista Flockhart last for almost 20 years and the same goes for Laurence Ferrari, always very much in tune with his violinist Renaud Capuçon.
Fiery kisses in front of photographers like Niels Schneider and Virginie Efira or Clovis Cornillac and Lilou Flogli. Enamored glances or tender gestures, for Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost, Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander, Michel Hazanavicius and Berenice Bejo or even Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively. Big bursts of laughter like Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons. On the Croisette, everyone demonstrates their passion in their own way. This year, Pierre Niney (with his partner Natasha Andrews), Emilie Dequenne (with her husband Michel Ferracci) and Richard Gere (with Alejandra Silva) were the lovers of the red carpet. From one year to the next, some may die out, others reignite, under the spotlights of Cannes, hearts always burn.
