<p class="title">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.</p>.<p class="bodytext">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".</p>.<p class="bodytext">"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.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"Today, French cinema has been orphaned. It has lost one of its legends," Culture Minister Franck Riester tweeted.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Karina was still a teenager when she hitchhiked to Paris from her native Denmark to try to become an actress.</p>.<p class="bodytext">She developed a successful modelling career before being spotted by Godard while walking along the Champs-Elysees.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Godard offered her a nude scene in "Breathless", his first and most famous film, but she refused.</p>.<p class="bodytext">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.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"We loved each other a lot," Karina told AFP in an interview in Paris in March 2018. "But it was complicated to live with him," she added.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"He was someone who could say to you, 'I am going to get some cigarettes' and come back three weeks later."</p>.<p class="bodytext">She later slipped behind the camera herself to make "Vivre ensemble", a romance between a history teacher and a free spirited young woman that ends in drugs and domestic violence.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Karina also had some success as a singer, recording "Sous Le Soleil Exactement" with Serge Gainsbourg.</p>
<p class="title">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.</p>.<p class="bodytext">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".</p>.<p class="bodytext">"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.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"Today, French cinema has been orphaned. It has lost one of its legends," Culture Minister Franck Riester tweeted.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Karina was still a teenager when she hitchhiked to Paris from her native Denmark to try to become an actress.</p>.<p class="bodytext">She developed a successful modelling career before being spotted by Godard while walking along the Champs-Elysees.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Godard offered her a nude scene in "Breathless", his first and most famous film, but she refused.</p>.<p class="bodytext">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.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"We loved each other a lot," Karina told AFP in an interview in Paris in March 2018. "But it was complicated to live with him," she added.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"He was someone who could say to you, 'I am going to get some cigarettes' and come back three weeks later."</p>.<p class="bodytext">She later slipped behind the camera herself to make "Vivre ensemble", a romance between a history teacher and a free spirited young woman that ends in drugs and domestic violence.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Karina also had some success as a singer, recording "Sous Le Soleil Exactement" with Serge Gainsbourg.</p>