She made her professional debut with the distinguished Comedie-Francaise theater troupe in 1954 after she graduated with honors from the conservatoire de Paris. She remained with the troupe through 1957, occasionally taking time off to perform on radio, television and in Parisian nightclubs. She made an inauspicious film debut in Trieze a Table in 1955. In early roles, Girardot was typically cast as doomed women of dubious origins in dark films, but she didn't make much impact until she played in Luchino Visconti's "Rocco and his Brothers" (1960). During filming she became romantically linked...