Known in France and abroad since the film “The Purple Rivers” in 2001, the actress Nadia Farès, found unconscious in a Parisian swimming pool a week ago and since plunged into a coma, died Friday at the age of 57.
“It is with immense sadness that we announce the death this Friday of Nadia Farès. France has lost a great artist, but for us, it is above all a mother that we have just lost,” wrote her daughters Cylia and Shana Chasman in a message sent to AFP. They ask for “respect and discretion” during their mourning.
The actress died at La Pitié Salpêtrière, where she was hospitalized on Sunday, after being brought to the surface, unconscious, from a swimming pool at a private club on rue Blanche, in the 9th arrondissement of Paris.
She felt unwell due to a “cardiac incident”, her daughters told AFP.
An investigation was opened but no offense has been noted at this stage.
Nadia Farès was due to shoot her first feature film as screenwriter and director next September. “Through hard work, questioning and persistence, I found a great team, we are working together on an action comedy with TF1 Studios,” she explained in a last interview published by Gala in January.
In this same interview, she revealed that she had undergone “brain surgery in 2007, due to an aneurysm that was far from small”. “A time bomb that needed to be addressed urgently. And in four years, I had three heart operations,” added the woman who said she swam four times a week.
Born in 1968 in Marrakech (Morocco), Nadia Farès grew up in Nice before moving to Paris to try an artistic career.
She started in cinema in the 1990s, playing for renowned directors such as Alexandre Arcady, Claude Lelouch and Bernie Bonvoisin.
American parenthesis
She finally established herself in the eyes of the general public in 2001 thanks to her role in “Les Rivières pourpres” by Mathieu Kassovitz, alongside Jean Reno and Vincent Cassel.
This role opened the doors to her internationally and she continued her career in a few Anglo-Saxon action films (“Rogue: the ultimate confrontation”, “Insane”) while playing in French films (“Wasps’ Nest”, “The Ex-Woman of My Life”…).
Then she decided to put her career on hold and lived in the United States with the producer Steve Chasman, whom she met in Normandy in the castle of Luc Besson, from whom she had her two daughters.
“By following my husband to Los Angeles, I really needed to build a family of my own, to devote all my time to it,” Nadia Farès told Gala. They separated four years ago and she returned to live in France.
“I have always followed my heart. To the detriment of a career, certainly,” said the actress.
She returned in 2016, for the Netflix series “Marseille”, in which she played the president of the Bouches-du-Rhône departmental council alongside Gérard Depardieu and Benoît Magimel.
She then rather starred in series, TV films or films intended for streaming platforms.
“Of course, as an actress, I would like to film more, but I consider myself extremely privileged in many ways, so I have no right to complain, to whine,” she confided last January.
