THE INTERESTING LIFE OF FRANÇOIS SAGAN

1. Stole her name from Proust.
2. Was expelled from the convent for “Deep lack of spirituality.”
3. Was called “The charming little monster.”
4. Wrote BONJOUR TRISTESSE at 18 about “a pleasure-driven 17 year old named Cécile.”
5. Married a playboy and “would-be ceramicist.”
6. Liked to spend time with Truman Capote.
7. And Ava Gardner.
8. Crashed her Aston-Martin, coma.
9. Got better and drove her Jaguar to Monte Carlo to gamble.
10. Had an affair with Bernard Frank, a married essayist obsessed with reading and eating.
11. Had an affair with French Playboy editor Annick Geille.
12. When police inspected her house, her dog Banko showed them her cocaine.
13. Banko licked the cocaine. “He seems to like it,” the police said.
14. Said: “A dress makes no sense unless it inspires men to want to take it off you."
15. Wrote her own obituary:

Appeared in 1954 with a slender novel, Bonjour Tristesse, which created a scandal worldwide. Her death, after a life and a body of work that were equally pleasant and botched, was a scandal only for herself.