Danish-French actress Anna Karina, muse of New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard, has died of cancer at the age of 79, her agent told AFP on Sunday. Karina, who epitomised Sixties chic with her elfin features and big kohl-rimmed blue eyes, starred in seven films made by her ex-husband Godard, including "Pierrot Le Fou". She also had some success as a singer, recording the hit "Sous Le Soleil Exactement" with Serge Gainsbourg for his musical "Anna" in 1967.

"Anna died yesterday in a Paris hospital of the effects of cancer," her agent Laurent Balandras told AFP, adding that she passed away in the company of her fourth husband, American director Dennis Berry. "Today, French cinema has been orphaned. It has lost one of its legends," Culture Minister Franck Riester tweeted.

Karina was still a teenager when she hitchhiked to Paris from her native Denmark to try to become an actress. Born Hanne Karin Bayer, it was designer Coco Chanel, who advised her to change her name to the more cinematic-sounding Anna Karina. The young Dane developed a successful modelling career before being spotted by Godard while walking along the Champs-Elysees. Godard offered her a nude scene in "Breathless", his first and most famous film, but she refused.

He came calling again a few months later, offering her the lead role in "The Little Soldier", a film about Algeria's war of independence from France that was banned for three years. They were already a couple when, at barely 21, she won best actress at the Berlin film festival for his "A Woman is a Woman" in 1961. And while Karina did work with other directors, including Agnes Varda, she was never cast by other leading male New Wave directors like Claude Chabrol or Francois Truffaut.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2019