People

By Guy D. Garcia

Her smoldering portrayal of Maggie in the 1957 Paris stage production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ignited her career as one of France's greatest actresses. She was 29. Now, 28 years later, Jeanne Moreau will star in another Tennessee Williams play, The Night of the Iguana. But this production is American, and she will be performing in English, the first time she has done so onstage. Opening in Baltimore in two weeks and on Broadway in November, the revival does not overawe her. "I don't think very much about what is dangerous or not," says the former sex symbol. "I can't panic. I don't have the time." To make her task even more unaccustomed, she chose to play the spinsterish New Englander, Hannah, and turned down the saucier part of Maxine, the innkeeper. Does she miss those earlier seductive roles? "Time has passed," she says, seemingly without regret.