DATE: Sunday, September 14, 1997            TAG: 9709120142

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E18  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   74 lines

BISSET BEMOANS "SILLY MOVIES"

JACQUELINE BISSET was once called ``the Rita Hayworth of the 1970s, only more demure - a femme fatale with class.''

She co-starred with the likes of Steve McQueen (``Bullit''), Paul Newman (``The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean'') and Frank Sinatra (``The Detective''). She starred in runaway hits like ``Airport,'' the biggest grossing movie of 1970, and as a flighty countess in ``Murder on the Orient Express'' (1974). She even played a fictionalized version of another Jackie, Jackie Onaissis, in ``The Greek Tycoon'' (1978).

She was the belle of the ball for more than a decade, and, yet, through it all, . . . she was boiling. She felt she was being used - particularly in the infamous wet T-shirt scene of ``The Deep'' (1977).

Today, Bisset, at 53, still has those jade-green eyes and the classy mixture of British coolness and French flirtiness that is her heritage. She wears a stylish white jacket and white slacks as she greets me in her suite at the Hotel Complexe Desjardins in Montreal where she is chairman of the jury for the Festival des Films du Monde, the World Film Festival. She heads a jury that must choose the film that will win the grand prize.

``Survival?'' she asked, pondering a question about her career. ``Well, I'm not a drug addict and I'm not an alcoholic, and I haven't had 90,000 affairs in Hollywood. I suppose you could call that survival. But I never worked with Ingmar Bergman, and I was in a lot of silly movies.''

She did, though, work with Roman Polanski and Francois Truffaut. Directors finally began to take her seriously after ``Day for Night,'' which has just been re-released and is being hailed again as the greatest movie ever made about moviemaking.

``I never really wanted to be in movies,'' she said, recalling her childhood in Weybridge, England. ``I thought there was something vaguely tacky about it. I suppose I was a little ashamed at the thought. I didn't think it was a terribly dignified business.''

She soon learned that her suspicions were justified. She became a model at age 18 and Hollywood promptly cast her as a character called Giovanna Goodthighs in the James Bondish spoof ``Casino Royale.'' She protested, claiming breach of contract, when the studio mysteriously let photographs get out of her in a wet T-shirt during shooting of ``The Deep.'' One critic wrote that it was ``a film of such silliness and massive box-office returns that even a conscientious critic is driven to consider the merits of soaked shirts.'' Rather than consider her protests, the studio merely used the publicity.

``I couldn't say `boo' when I first went to Hollywood,'' she said. ``Publicists often said that I got by because people thought I was ladylike - and they treated me with a little respect because of it. That may have been true at times, but not often.

``I fell in love with making movies because everything was so nonstructured. I don't think it's the most respected of jobs, but there is a freedom about it. No one seems to know what they're doing and then the movie comes out and, sometimes, it makes sense. It's amazing.''

But ``movie star'' was never her goal. ``My parents were very selective in what films I could see as a child. My idols were Simone Signoret and Jeanne Moreau - both French actresses.'' Moreau preceded her, last year, as chairman of the jury at Montreal.

She prefers a strong director. ``At least I need to know he's there,'' she said. On working with John Huston on ``Judge Roy Bean,'' she said, ``He didn't take very good care of me. At one time, he told Paul Newman and I to just rehearse on our own. He'd say, `Dear, I'll let you know if you aren't good.' ''

Most recently, she got rave reviews for ``La Ceremonie,'' and is increasingly doing films in Europe, although her permanent home remains Los Angeles. As for the dearth of women's roles today, she said, ``I think women are doing OK. People like Glenn Close and Susan Sarandon work regularly. Looking at my career, I suppose you realize that I just took the best of what I was offered.'' ILLUSTRATION: File photo

Jacqueline Bisset KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu