(a) "Though Ms Riva has long been admired for her inimitable diction, allure and unassuming intelligence in portraying often dark and unconventional characters in New Wave classics like 'Hiroshima Mon Amour,' she said, 'I’ve never wanted to be a star, never.'
(b) "The celebrity she never sought came in 1959 when Alain Resnais chose her as the lead in 'Hiroshima Mon Amour,' playing an actress who goes to Hiroshima after the United States has dropped the atomic bomb, and is caught in an impossible affair with a Japanese architect.
"She has fond memories of the experience, whose aftereffects include the 2009 publication of a book of photographs she took of Hiroshima during the shooting, and a lasting friendship with the movie’s writer, Marguerite Duras.
My comment:
(a) French actress Emmanuelle Riva, born Paulette Rivat in 1927 and now 85, stars in a much acclaimed film Amour, as a retired music teacher who falls into physical and mental decline after a stroke, putting enormous strain on her husband.
(b) The quotation above is about a film she starred at 32.
amour (n; Middle English, love, affection, from Anglo-French, from Latin, from amare to love; First Known Use 14th century):
"a usually illicit love affair; also : LOVER" http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/amour
(ii) amour http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amour
(French for love)
(d) There is no need to read the rest of the character portrait.