Life (1967); Love Is a Funny Thing (1969); and Mourir d'aimer (To die of love, 1971), the fact-based tale of Gabrielle Russier (1937–1969), a thirty year old teacher whose affair with a much younger student made her the object of bourgeoisie ridicule. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe, and remains Girardot's biggest box office hit in France. Throughout the 1970s, Girardot came back and forth between drama and comedy, proving herself an adept comedian in such successful comedies as Claude Zidi's La Zizanie, Michel Audiard's She Does Not Drink, Smoke or Flirt But... She Talks (Elle boit pas, elle fume pas, elle drague pas, mais... elle cause !, 1970) or Philippe de Broca's Dear Inspector (Tendre poulet, 1977). She starred in the teen movie, The Slap (La Gifle, 1974) as Isabelle Adjani's mother. In 1972, she said in an interview to The New York Times, citing as Exhibit A her role as a sideshow freak in The Ape Woman, "I think I've proven that I'm opposed to typecasting. I believe that the acting of any role — from duchess to kitchen slavey — must be a form of transformation". She won her first César Award for Best Actress portraying the title character in the drama Docteur Françoise Gailland (1976). Throughout the 1970s, she was the highest-paid actress in France, and was nicknamed "La Girardot" by the press as her name alone was seen as enough to guarantee the success of a film. Between the release of Live for Life (1967) and Jupiter's Thigh (1980), 24 of her films have attracted more than one million admissions in France. Girardot's became one of the symbols of the 1970s feminist movement in France, as the audience embraced the "everywoman" quality she brought to the strong-minded female characters she regularly played in both dramas and comedies. In her 1989 autobiography, Vivre d'aimer, she wrote: "People didn't come to watch a beautiful, vamp-like creature, but simply a woman. [...] I played a judge, a lawyer, a taxi driver, a cop, a surgeon. I was never a glamorous star." From the 1980s onwards: Fading stardom and comeback The 1980s were less kind, as her career floundered and parts dwindled. In 1983, she lost a fortune when Revue Et Corrigée, the musical show she put on and starred in at the Casino de Paris, flopped. She suffered from depression, but bounced back with several television