I’m slowly reading Sheridan Morley’s John Gielgud. The book discusses the 1957 Otto Premiger’s screen version of Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan. The movie cast included Richard Widmark (who just recently died) and Gielgud. Premiger cast an eighteen year old unknown & inexperienced girl from Iowa, Joan Seberg after a publicized search for the right actress for the part. Some 18,000 actresses were supposedly considered before she was selected by the director. However, shortly after starting the filming, Premiger decided he had made a mistake and, according to Gielgud, was "utterly horrible" to her on the set. Gielgud comforted her and tried to help her acting. They became friends. The film wasn’t well received by critics or the public. In spite of that, Premiger selected her for a second film and she went on to star in 34 films before her death.

During her life, she was active in supporting the NAACP, the Black Panther Party and Native American causes which brought her to the attention of the FBI. Her telephone was tapped and she was closely observed which caused her great worry and anguish. In the 1970’s, when she was seven months pregnant, Hoover leaked a false report that the child was not her husband’s, but that of a member of the Black Panther Party. The Caucasian child was still born and Seberg held a press conference to attack the FBI. She had severe bouts of depression and was hospitalized several times. She became addicted to drugs and alcohol. On each anniversary of the child’s death she attempted suicide including throwing herself under a train on the Paris Metro. In 1979 she announced she was returning to films, but later that year was reported missing. She had been missing two weeks when the forty one year old actress was found dead in the back seat of her car in a Paris suburb on September 7, 1979. She had taken a massive overdose of barbiturates and left a note "Forgive me. I can no longer live with my nerves." Her second husband, Alexandre Diego Gary also committed suicide a year after her death.