Aurore Clement was born in Soissons, France, to farming parents. After her father's death, she left for Paris to pursue a career in modeling, eventually finding work with a modeling agency. She quickly gained recognition for her natural style and refusal to wear makeup.
In the 1970s, Louis Malle discovered Aurore on the cover of Elle magazine and cast her in the role of France, a young Jewish woman in love with a collaborator in the controversial film Lacombe, Lucien (1974). She then met Chantal Akerman and became one of her favorite comedians, starring in films such as Meetings with Anna (1978) and Tomorrow We Move (2004).
Aurore left for the Philippines to film Apocalypse Now (1979) with Francis Ford Coppola, where she played the enigmatic and drug-addicted Roxanne. However, her sequence was cut from the film and only appeared in the Redux version in 2001. During filming, she met her husband, production designer Dean Tavoularis.
After several films in Italy, Aurore was featured in two films shown in Cannes in the same year. She portrayed a loose woman for Claude Chabrol in The Hatter's Ghost (1982) and a mysterious woman lost in the rain for Peter Del Monte in "L'invitation au Voyage". Two years later, she was cast by Wim Wenders as Dean Stockwell's wife in Paris, Texas (1984),which won the French Cannes Festival Palme d'Or.
Aurore has excelled in playing both dramatic and lunatic characters, reconnecting with the 'cinéma d'auteur' in films such as Nous sommes tous encore ici (1997),For Sale (1998),Only You (1994),La repentie (2002),and Stan the Flasher (1990). She has also appeared in well-received and widely distributed films such as Tanguy (2001),Bon Voyage (2003),and Jet Set (2000).
In addition to her film career, Aurore has been a successful stage actress, winning an acting prize for her portrayal of a young woman forced to disguise herself as a man in Albert Nobbs (1988). She has also been seen in Anton Chekhov's La Mouette, Marguerite Duras' Les Eaux et Forets, and Alexandre Dumas fils' La Dame aux Camelias, alongside Isabelle Adjani, for which she has been nominated for the Molieres.
Some of her notable television appearances include Une péniche nommée 'Réalité' (1985),Deux amies d'enfance (1983),Quidam (1984),Le regard dans le miroir (1985),Les Alsaciens: ou les deux Mathilde (1996),and Maigret et le corps sans tête (1991). She has also been recently seen in the series Zodiaque (2004).
