The parents of Nathalie Baye, who recently died at age 77, were also artists. And their daughter’s success sometimes triggered their jealousy, as the actress said during her lifetime…
Nathalie Baye, who died on April 18 at the age of 77 from Lewy body disease, grew up in a family of artists, but it was to the second art that her parents, Claude Baye and Denise Coustet, devoted themselves. Painters by profession, they were sometimes envious of their daughter’s success, as she told in the Belgian show Hep Taxi!
Nathalie Baye, her parents “hurt” by her success? “It’s crazy…”
Nathalie Baye’s parents may have been “frustrated“to the idea of not”drill“as painters, but were still happy to”the freedom they had“.”There is still pain in there. Every artist needs to be recognized“, said the actress in Jérôme Colin’s taxi, on the Belgian channel RTBF.
“They were not recognized. On the other hand, the fact that I was… I don’t know if they were a little proud, but at the same time, it hurt them in some way. It’s crazy“, revealed the mother of Laura Smet, now an orphan. At the start of her career, she therefore did not receive “warm congratulations” from her parents for making her acting dream come true.
“One day my father was in the hospital. I had gone to see him and there was a gentleman who was in the same room as him and who said to my father: ‘But you didn’t tell me, Claude, that Nathalie Baye was your daughter?’ And my father answered in front of me and said: ‘No, it’s me who is Nathalie Baye’s father‘”, she remembered before specifying: “It tells about things that are painful for him.“
Nathalie Baye, “proud” of her daughter Laura Smet: “I was a little anxious”
But Johnny Hallyday’s ex-wife did not reproduce this pattern with her daughter, Laura Smet. On the contrary, she did not fail to compliment her on her acting career. “When she started studying in a drama class, I was a little nervous to know that she wanted to do this profession. One day, she asked me to have her say a text she had learned. I was blissful, because it was astonishingly accurate.“, Nathalie Baye told Europe 1 in 2017. And added: “I am very proud of her“.
Laura Smet also reacted soberly to the announcement of her mother’s death in an Instagram post. “Mom, I lost half of my heart. She was the best mother in the world. I am sending you these few words without really believing in them yet“, declared the 43-year-old actress, while many personalities such as Stéphane Bern, Jamel Debbouze, Guillaume Canet and Josiane Balasko expressed their affection in the comments of the post.
