Michèle Ray-Gavras


Michèle Ray-Gavras is a French producer and journalist, born in 1939 in Paris. She is married to film director Costa-Gavras.
Michèle Ray-Gavras was kidnapped and detained by the Vietcong while reporting on the Vietnam war in 1967.
She married Greek director Costa-Gavras in 1968, she is the mother of Patrick Maffone, Alexandre Gavras, Julie Gavras and Romain Gavras.

Reporter

As an independent journalist between 1963 and 1977, Michèle Ray covered struggles in Vietnam and Bolivia for multiple French media.
Between April 1966 and February 1967, Michèle Ray travelled in South Vietnam among the American GI forces. She then continued to the communist north and was captured by the Vietcong on 17 January 1967. She was liberated on 6 February after falling sick. She brought back a special report published in the Nouvel Observateur, a film that was used in the documentary Far from Vietnam and published a book, The Two Shores of Hell.
She traveled to Bolivia in 1967 to report on the capture and death of Che Guevara, publishing an article in Paris Match before being expelled from the country.
In 1971, Michèle Ray was covering the Uruguayan general election for French television and radio, when she was kidnapped by the anarchist group OPR-33 and held for 3 days, between 29 November and 3 December before being released. Costa Gavras was in Uruguay at the time, preparing his film State of Siege.

Producer

She is currently working on a remake Le Couperet with Park Chan-wook.

Personal life

After meeting Costa Gavras when she was 24, she married him in 1968 on the set of Z. They have 3 children, Alexandre Gavras, Julie Gavras, and Romain Gavras.
She is also the mother of Patrick Maffone, from an earlier union.