Gigi
Gigi is a
1958 musical film, a
remake of a
1948 French non-musical, about a wealthy cultured man who discovers he is in love with a young Parisian girl, and eventually marries her. The
Broadway version pf the play opened on
November 24,
1951 staring little known actress
Audrey Hepburn playing the lead character (the
play ran for six months and lead to Hepburn's film debut in
Roman Holiday).
The movie was based on a novel by the French sentimental romance writer Colette, and starred Leslie Caron and Maurice Chevalier with support from Louis Jourdan, Hermione Gingold and Eva Gabor.
The film was nominated for an Oscar in nine categories, and won all nine. None of them, however, was for any of the acting awards.
- Academy Award for Best Picture - Arthur Freed, producer
- Academy Award for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White or Color - E. Preston Ames, F. Keogh Gleason, Henry Grace, and William A. Horning
- Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Color - Joseph Ruttenberg
- Academy Award for Costume Design, Black-and-White or Color - Cecil Beaton
- Academy Award for Directing - Vincente Minnelli
- Best Film Editing - Adrienne Fazan
- Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture - André Previn
- Best Music, Song - Alan Jay Lerner (lyrics), Frederick Loewe (music) - For the song "Gigi"
- Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium - Alan Jay Lerner
The film also has been selected for preservation in the United States
National Film Registry.
Gigi is also a name used by Luigino Longo, a Norwegian-Italian socialist activist. He is currently serving jail time in Sweden following a controversial trial in which he was convicted of assaulting the police during the 2001 Gothenburg demonstrations against George W. Bush and the EU.