This beautiful, dark-haired Swiss actress made a hit with a supporting role in her first film, as the piano teacher in Louis Malle's "Au Revoir, les enfants" (1987). Educated in London and Geneva, and a Paris resident since the age of 18, Jacob became a promising starlet with her Malle success and followed up with another small role in Jacques Rivette's "La Bande des quatre/The Gang of Four" (1989).

Stardom (and a Cannes Film Festival Best Actress award) arrived with Jacob's dual role as two women whose lives are mysteriously linked in Krzysztof Kieslowski's psychological drama "The Double Life