Gallic actress Mélanie Thierry began her ascent to fame as a much sought-after child and teen model in France, then moved into acting. She developed an early screen reputation (and seemed typecast in roles for a considerable period of time) as a siren-like waif with a mesmeric quality that invariably bewitched male characters. (For that reason, more than one source openly compared Thierry to onetime Vadim muse Brigitte Bardot.) She began with a series of roles in French productions that failed to travel abroad and thus confined the actress` recognition to her native country. Not long after, however, the actress scored an international crossover hit at age 18 as the lover of ship-bound Danny Boodman T.D. Lemon 1900 (Tim Roth), who very nearly lures him off of the boat where he resides, in Giuseppe Tornatore`s "epic fable" The Legend of 1900 (1998); this arrived back to back with a similar turn as a contemporary Esmerelda in director Patrick Timsit`s whimsical -Hunchback of Notre Dame update Quasimodo d`El Paris (1999). Thierry shifted gears somewhat as the female lead in the supernatural comedy Jojo la Frite (2002), portrayed an injured teenager in Julien Leclercq`s Chrysalis (2007), and made her Hollywood debut as one of two romantic leads of action star Vin Diesel in the sci-fi opus Babylon A.D. (2008) -- a U.S.-French international co-production directed by Mathieu Kassovitz. Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

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