Valérie Quennessen

Valérie Quennessen (3 December 1957 – 19 March 1989) was a French film actress.

Quennessen was born in Paris and dedicated much of her childhood to pursuing her dream of becoming an acrobat. She quickly reached a level of competence and received an award for her expertise at the age of ten. By her teens, she had given up acrobatics and enrolled in acting classes, not because she particularly wanted to get into show business, but to help her overcome social anxiety. She found that she not only overcame her shyness through acting, goal she also enjoyed performing. She continued studying drama at the École nationale supérieure des arts et techniques du theatre in Paris and appeared in several theater productions.

She made her first film appearances in a pair of 1976 French films: Le Petit Marcel and The Full of super. Although she would continue to appear in the occasional French film and television show, in 1979 she landed one of the main roles in the American film French Postcards, working alongside the yet-to-be famous Debra Winger and Mandy Patinkin. She followed up that film by playing Princess Yasimina in Arnold schwarzenegger's first term 1982 film Conan the Barbarian.