CIVIL STATUS
Profession Actress
Birth Name Brigade Van Meerhaegue
Nationality Frenchwoman
Born 12 October 1955 (Tourcoing, Nord – France)
BIOGRAPHY
Brigitte Lahaie’s career interview
The Nés sous X dossier
Brigitte Lahaie began her career as an actress at the age of twenty by shooting pornographic films from 1976 to 1980, including La Clinique des fantasmes (1978) by Gérard Kikoïne, Bordel SS (id.) by José Bénazéraf and Les Petites écolières (1980) by Claude Mulot. At the same time, she made a name for herself in a few horror films directed by Jean Rollin, including The Grapes of Death (1978), Fascination (1979) and The Night of the Hunted (1980). Their fruitful collaboration continued in 1997 with The Two Vampire Orphans and in 2000 with The Bride of Dracula.
In 1980, the woman who became the muse of the golden age of decided to put an end to her sulphurous career and turned to so-called “traditional” cinema. Brigitte Lahaie then made a number of short appearances in major productions such as I comme Icare by Henri Verneuil, where she played a prostitute found hanged, Diva (1980) by Jean-Jacques Beineix, Pour la peau d’un flic (1981), where, encouraged by Alain Delon, she played the role of a nurse, and Henry & June by American filmmaker Philip Kaufman, in which she once again slips into the shoes of a prostitute.
However, in the 1980s, she continued to act in a few erotic films. Among the most famous are Brian Smedley-Aston’s Erotica (1981), Jacques Saurel’s Joy & Joan (1985), and Pierre B. Reinhard’s The Pink Devil (1987), in which she plays a cabaret dancer during World War II. In 1986, Michel Caputo offered her the title role in his thriller The Executor, while Jesus Franco imagined her as a Machiavellian nurse in his horror film The Predators of the Night (1988).
In 1990, she was directed by Philip Kaufman in Henry & June with Uma Thurman and three years later she starred alongside Elise Tielrooy in Fatal Illusions. Jean Rollin cast her in 1997 in Les deux Orphelines vampires and then in 2002 for La Fiancée de Dracula, in which she played the character La Louve. Still in the horror register, she appears in Fabrice Du Welz’s film, The Very Violent Calvary (2005).
In parallel to her film career, she appeared on the radio in the show “Les Grosses Têtes” on RTL, then tried to enter the music world with the song “Caresse tendresse” which did not meet with the desired success. She has published several novels and essays on sexuality, as well as presenting programs with a similar theme on cable channels. Later, Brigitte Lahaie presented her own show on RMC with “Lahaie, l’Amour et Vous”. She returned to the cinema in 2013 in a drama by Fabrice Grange, Le Bonheur, then in a documentary by Denys Maury Les Filles d’Eve et du Serpent.
