Isabelle Sadoyan

Isabelle Sadoyan (12 May 1928 – 10 July 2017) was a French-Armenian actress born in Lyon, France, whose career spanned theater, film, and television across more than six decades.

Sadoyan began her theatrical career in 1950 with the production Bottines et collets montés, a play drawn from works by Eugène Labiche and Georges Courteline and directed by Roger Planchon. She continued working primarily with Planchon throughout the 1950s, establishing a foundation in French stage performance that would define much of her professional life.

In 1968, Sadoyan brought her stage work to New York, appearing on Broadway in three productions: Tartuffe, George Dandin, and the musical The Three Musketeers. The engagements marked her sole Broadway appearances and placed her among the French performers who brought their theatrical work to American audiences during that period.

Her screen career brought her into collaboration with a wide range of prominent directors, including Jeanne Moreau, Claude Chabrol, Claude Lelouch, Luc Besson, Jean-Luc Godard, Henri Verneuil, Bertrand Tavernier, Robert Kechichian, and Krzysztof Kieślowski.

Later in her career, Sadoyan received two nominations for the Molière Award for Best Supporting Actress, the first in 2010 for Les Fausses Confidences and the second in 2014 for L'Origine du monde. She won the award on the second occasion.

In her personal life, Sadoyan was married to actor Jean Bouise, who died in 1989.