"Enchanting." That word came up often among the people who dealt with French Actress Jeanne Moreau for this week's cover story. It was the reaction first of Paris Correspondent Barry Farrell, who began the interview in the South of France and then went to Mexico, where Moreau & Co. were on location near the resort city of Cuernavaca for the shooting of Viva Maria! Invited to be her houseguest at the villa she had rented for herself and staff, Farrell spent ten days interviewing at poolside, on the set, and on auto trips to Mexico City, Barry at the wheel. "Her whole household has a wonderful atmosphere," said Farrell. "People coming and going--Bardot and Louis Malle--and everyone singing Jeanne's praise. But she is quite modest. In her household, pleasant vibrations are in the air."

When Farrell returned to New 'York to write the story, Los Angeles Correspondent Joyce Haber took over in Mexico. At least one actress has looked with rather narrow eyes at Joyce: Carroll Baker once protested in a letter to TIME that Correspondent Haber couldn't appreciate her attributes the way a man could. Being studied by a woman reporter didn't bother Jeanne Moreau; Joyce and Jeanne got along like old friends. "It was delightful," said Jeanne. "Although the two are different--friends and reporters--no?" Yes, but Joyce, too, was "enchanted."

The reaction was shared by urbane Semi-Abstractionist Rufino Tamayo who did the cover portrait.* Instead of the flamboyant, movie-star type he had envisaged, the artist found his subject "a most unglamorous girl of marvelous simplicity. From the beginning," he recalled of the sittings in his Cuernavaca weekend home, "she said we should talk in English because her mother was English and she preferred the maternal tongue. It was her own delightful way of telling me what I already knew--that my French is preposterous." He was delighted that Jeanne agreed to informal sittings, without makeup or hairdo, "because I wanted to show her differently and she gave me the opportunity."

Despite all this enchantment, Reporter Haber, Writer Farrell and Editor Cranston Jones hope they kept their journalistic judgment. As for the Tamayo portrait, it stirred mixed feelings in the subject. Said Jeanne: "I was struck by one thing when I saw the portrait [in progress], and that was the strength he found in me--not the strength I have, but the strength I would like to have."

-His second for TIME. His first: Mexican President Lopez Mateos, Dec. 8, 1958.

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