Mr. Louis, 88, dressed such screen divas as Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayward and Marlene Dietrich.

(Imagine the dressing room of a screen diva or Diaghilev dancer without one, draped with a fringed silk scarf, of course).

In 1916, Menichelli's status as a screen diva was cemented by Tigre Reale (Royal Tiger), directed by Giovanni Pastrone.

On a third wall is a set of more recent fake film stills, a series of 1996 "self-portraits" by Yasumasa Morimura, who photographs himself elaborately cross-dressed as Liza Minnelli, Greta Garbo, Marilyn Monroe and other screen divas.

In these two films, Sansa, an actress of exquisite restraint, tiptoes in the footsteps of the great screen divas of the past.

But I got to work with screen divas like Zeenat Aman and Helen.

These early films attracted the attention of Hollywood and, in particular, the screen diva Ingrid Bergman, who was tired of formulaic studio movies and begged Rossellini to cast her in one of his films.

And though she may ultimately take her place in the pantheon of French screen divas, she does not, in the manner of, say, Audrey Tautou, seem like the nostalgic after-image of a bygone era.

What really distinguishes her, though, from other screen divas of her era, including Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow and Marlene Dietrich, is that her acting style hasn't dated.