The real story of horrific stalking and harassment faced by French actress Jean Seberg because of her support for the Black Panthers – as new Kirsten Stewart thriller revisits the shocking tale

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The death of Jean Seberg was in a number of ways as tragic as some of the characters she played during her iconic yet short 22-year film career.

The body of the American star, who became the face of the French New Wave, was found decomposing in her car on a street in Paris 10 days after she had left her nearby apartment.

A bottle of barbiturates and a suicide note were left beside her naked corpse that was wrapped in a blanket and was reported to have 'baked in the sun' for days.

But the years running up to her untimely death had not been any easier, fraught with pain, death and terror. Subjected to a counter-intelligence campaign by the FBI for supporting the revolutionary civil rights groups, Seberg lost a child following a premature birth in a harrowing three years of mental torture.

While her death, 40 years ago this August, was left with 'unresolved questions' according to the coroner's report, the details of her incredible life story are now set to be the subject of a biopic, with Kristen Stewart taking the lead role.

A new film based on the life of actress Jean Seberg and her fall from stardom at the hands of the FBI is set to be released in cinemas next year. Pictured: The Iowa-born actress in 1956

29-year-old Kristen Stewart will play Seberg at a similar point in her life in the forthcoming Amazon Original film

'The first time that I saw Breathless I loved Jean in it. I knew that she was a short of French darling and came from the States and spoke with a funny accent and felt more present,' said Stewart (left) of Seberg (right, in 1960)

The film at its heart deals with the struggles that led to Seberg's demise aged 40, but begins with the Hollywood tale of a talented starlet plucked for fame and fortune.

It was in 1957, aged 19, that Seberg won a talent search conducted by director Otto Preminger for the role of Joan of Arc in Graham Greene's Saint Joan. He had reportedly screen tested more than 18,000 women for the role.

Seberg's only prior acting experience at the time was a single season of summer stock performances, and while the film itself was soundly panned, her career would soon take off with the help of a promising new director.

Jean-Luc Godard's crime-drama Breathless would prove more than a breakthrough for Seberg, with the role of the 'American girlfriend' walking the streets of Paris in a New York Herald Tribune T-shirt becoming an icon of French New Wave cinema.

Her performance would later caught the eye of Kristen Stewart, who has used it as the main source of inspiration for getting the feel of Seberg's character in order to play her onscreen.

'The first time that I saw Breathless I loved Jean in it. I knew that she was a short of French darling and came from the States and spoke with a funny accent and felt more present,' she told France24 earlier this month.

In the 1960s, Seberg became a high profile activist, speaking on civil rights platforms and supporting The Black Panthers as well making donations of $10,500 (£8,163) to expand their popular inner-city children's breakfast programme. Pictured: Stewart as Seberg with actors playing members of the Black Panthers

Members of the Black Panthers applaud during a demonstration outside of the Criminal Courts building New York City in 1969. They were protesting the imprisonment of twenty-one of their members being held for allegedly plotting to bomb various sites in the city

The highly controversial group had already received support from Hollywood star Marlon Brando, who had spoken at the funeral of one of the group's first leaders, but were branded 'the greatest threat to the internal security of the country' by the authorities

'She was really impulsive, idealistic, naive at times but always really well-intentioned. I felt like vindicating her and sort of validating her.'

The vindication Stewart speaks of is for what happened when Seberg chose to use her new-found influence to venture into politics - on the opposite side to the US government.

In the 1960s, Seberg became a high profile activist, speaking on civil rights platforms and supporting The Black Panthers as well making donations of $10,500 (£8,163) to expand their popular inner-city children's breakfast programme.

The highly controversial group had already received support from Hollywood star Marlon Brando, who had spoken at the funeral of one of the group's first leaders, but were branded 'the greatest threat to the internal security of the country' by the authorities.

It is also thought that Seberg had a relationship with a cousin of Malcolm X, activist Hakim Jamal, who is played by Anthony Mackie in the film.

J. Edgar Hoover's FBI soon took an interest in the Hollywood star-turned-activist, with some newspapers at the time even reporting that President Nixon was kept informed about the counter intelligence operation, known as COINTELPRO, that would begin horrendous smear campaign against Seberg.

According to now declassified 1970 FBI memos, it was decided to insinuate via 'gossipy columnists in Los Angeles' that then-pregnant Seberg had not conceived with her husband Romain Gary but in fact had been impregnated by Raymond Hewitt, another Black Panthers activist.

Following her star turn in Jean-Luc Godard's 1960 film Breathless, Seberg married French writer Romain Gary, with whom she had a child

According to now declassified 1970 FBI memos, it was decided to insinuate via 'gossipy columnists in Los Angeles' that then-pregnant Seberg had not conceived with her husband Romain Gary but in fact had been impregnated by Raymond Hewitt, another Black Panthers activist

The idea behind the COINTELPRO operation was the 'neutralization' of Seberg, and to 'cause her embarrassment and serve to cheapen her image with the public,' according to now publicly available notes. Pictured: Vince Vaughan and Jack O’Connell as FBI officers in Seberg

The idea behind the COINTELPRO operation was the 'neutralization' of Seberg, and to 'cause her embarrassment and serve to cheapen her image with the public,' according to now publicly available notes. The secret FBI programme ran from 1956 to 1971, with Seberg being targeted between 1969 and 1971.

The manufactured rumour first appeared in Los Angeles Times gossip writer Joyce Haber's column in 1970, before making its way into Newsweek and other publications.

The effect of the unfounded report left Seberg distraught, and she went into premature labour, giving birth to her daughter Nina. However she died just two days later.

Seberg famously held an open-casket funeral in her hometown of Marshalltown, Iowa to show that her her baby was white, fathered by husband Romain as his.

But the FBI's operation didn't end there. Seberg would continue to be burgled, wiretapped, and stalked by the intelligence and surveillance community for another year.

She was left increasingly paranoid and barely functional by the covert operation, unable to work for the whole of 1971, and would by 1975 see her film career dry up. It was reported that she attempted suicide on every anniversary of her daughter Nina's death.

By the time of her own passing she had hired two bodyguards due to several threats to her life, and her mental health had deteriorated rapidly. One source reports that Seberg claimed her refrigerator was spying on her and she would converse with it in the middle of the night.

Hundreds gathered at Paris's Montparnasse Cemetery for her funeral in September 1979, her casket covered with lilies, daisies, and yellow roses. 

Less than a month after her death on August 30, the FBI admitted they had planted the rumour surrounding the parentage of Seberg's baby, and released documents showing how they pushed the false information to gossip columnists in the Los Angeles area

Blonde bombshell: In a new trailer for the film, Stewart is the spitting image of Seberg as she sports short-cropped blonde tresses and mimics the Hollywood star's most iconic moments

Among those present were her young son Diego and his father (Jean's former husband), notable French author and diplomat Romain Gary.

Parisian police had declared her death a suicide, the result of alcohol and barbiturate poisoning. But the coroner was more cautious, at first issuing a report of 'probable suicide' with 'unresolved questions,' and then the following year filing charges for 'persons unknown' who may have been involved in her death.

Less than a month after her death on August 30, the FBI admitted they had planted the rumour surrounding the parentage of Seberg's baby, and released documents showing how they pushed the false information to gossip columnists in the Los Angeles area.

'Usual precautions would be taken by the Los Angeles Division to preclude identification of the Bureau as the source of the letter if approval is granted,' read a section of the internal memo.

In 1980, the Los Angeles Times reported further revelations of the 'pervasive investigation' into Seberg were revealed, including attempts to monitor her bank accounts, her travel, and any conversations she had being having with the Black Panthers at their wiretapped headquarters. 

The bureau's Director, William H. Webster, said the FBI no longer engaged in such activities, and did not indicate whether bureau officials believed the rumor to be true, according to the New York Times' original report.

Seberg, directed by Benedict Andrews and starring Kristen Stewart, will be released in UK cinemas on January 10, 2020.