By Anna Fitzpatrick

Style icons, movie stars, and anyone else who is considered to lead a “glamorous” life are usually surrounded by a certain amount of controversy, whether true or not – multiple husbands, questionable drinking habits and rumoured diva-like attitudes.  While Jean Seberg’s life was filled with controversy, it was for very different reasons.

It would be easy to dismiss Seberg as fulfilling the classic Hollywood story – of a small town American girl getting discovered by a casting agent, become a successful actress and die young due to tragic circumstances – but she was so much more than that.

Seberg was born in Marshalltown, Iowa (a town that today has 26 000 residents).  Her life was relatively normal until the age of seventeen, when she took part in a nationwide talent search.  She was hand picked out of 18, 000 girls by film director Otto Preminger who casted her as the lead in the Joan of Arc biopic, Saint Joan (a role originally offered to Audrey Hepburn).

Seberg worked again with Preminger in 1958’s Bounjour Tristesse before getting cast as Patricia Franchini in Jean Luc Godard’s Breathless.  Her character, who spent a good part of the film in full skirts, striped dresses, and, of course, a close cropped hairdo, confirmed Seberg not only as a style icon but also as one of the biggest stars in French new wave film.