FRENCH FILM LEGEND and amateur racing car driver Jean-Louis Trintignant, who earned acclaim for his starring role in the Oscar-winning film A Man And A Woman half a century ago, and went on to portray the brutality of ageing in his later years, has died aged 91.

He died at his home in south-west France, according to Bertrand Cortellini, who operated a vineyard with the actor and visited him yesterday before his death.

French news reports said Trintignant had cancer.

In a career that started when he was 19, Trintignant appeared in more than 100 films.

He was one of France’s premier actors in the post-war era and one of the last remaining performers of his generation.

Tributes poured in after his death was announced today.

Born on December 11, 1930 in Piolenc in southern France, Trintignant started acting in the theatre but gained broader fame in cinema, notably starring with Brigitte Bardot in And God Created Woman in 1956.

He starred in Italian films and several films by legendary French director Claude Lelouch, most famously A Man And A Woman in 1966, which won the Oscar for best foreign film.

Trintignant played a racing car driver, a passion he pursued off-screen, in a complex romance alongside Anouk Aimee.

Trintignant continued acting on stage and on screen into his 80s, and earned new international attention in Michael Haneke’s 2013 Oscar-winning drama Amour, a raw depiction of an ageing couple after one of them has a stroke.