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Its strange France is not only frequently stereotyped as having some of the world's most gorgeous women but the country is well-respected for being a cinema powerhouse (even today, France still sends prestigious movies that garner acclaim world wide including frequently gaining nominations in the Academy Awards and occasionally wining some). Not to mention France was one of the big 3s in the Silent Film era along with USA and Britain and made major advancements in film science esp techniques and technology.
As someone who's been on an Audrey Hepburn binge since last month (LOVE LOVE LOVE HER!) and started to check out Sophia Loren movies I haven't seen 3 days ago.........It baffles me............. No film star in the Golden Age of cinema (which I will for convenience's sake refer to in this discussion from the silent film era all the way to 1972) from France has remained legendary status and still adored today in the international scene esp English language nations.
France doesn't seem to have produce someone who who is still remembered today as a legend of cinema before the modern era on the status of Sophia Loren or even her own Marlene Dietrich. Why? It seems at best French Golden Age stars like Jean Sorel are only remembered in Europe and not the international scene and even than even the UK the mainstream non-core movie watcher base is often ignorant of them with the exception of maybe Alain Delon.
Even if we discount British actors, Sophia Loren still remains a name of immense commercial power and is he non-English Golden age era star that still has big fame in North America and Australia outside of movie buffs (as seen in Seinfeld's referencing her). Multiple film awards organization still star her in interviews and point out back to her magnus opei work.
Hell even Marlene Dietrich despite now being forgotten today (even older generations from the baby boomer era I notice are unfamiliar with her) is still the face of golden age German cinema among film buffs and people getting into German cinema or even getting deeper into Golden Age Hollywood will always eventually encounter her (as I finally watched a film starring her for the first time last week when I watched It Sizzles in Paris in my Audrey marathon). Marlene Dietrich while now obscure among mainstream non-movie watching commoners, still is considered prestigious among movie enthusiast. So much that the AFI put her in the top 10 greatest female movie stars of all time, beating Sophia Loren who was placed in top 25.
So how come no one French (and I mean strictly French such as born and grew up in France and had a career strictly in European cinema, mostly playing French language roles) seems to have become the nation's Sophia Loren in international mainstream fame and prestige outside of Europe?
That's an odd definition of "golden age", but I can roll with it.
I do not know that there is any one reason, but there are several factors that strike me as applicable.
One: Prior to the New Wave, French cinema was very male-oriented, thematically.
Jean Renoir's two great films of the 1930s were both centered on male concerns. Grand Illusion was about World War I and the clash between old world values and modern concerns. The Rules of the Game was largely about social class anxieties and, while there are prominent female roles, they are all subservient to the men around them as far as the film's narrative is concerned.
Two: World War II disrupted things, including postwar cinema, quite a bit.
Three: Even in the 1950s, even in films centered on women such as Max Ophuls's final film Lola Montes, the female character (played by sex symbol Martine Carroll), the character is at the mercy of outside forces. And the stars, even the sex symbols, never quite managed to find international roles that made them iconic.
Heck, this carries into the '60s. Anna Karina was smoking hot in Godard's films, but if she made a film in English, I don't even know of it.
If you watch Bernard Tavernier's excellent documentary My Journey Through French Cinema you'll find another pattern that I didn't know of before: the French actress who has one amazing role, and then never really finds another.
A possible fourth factor, though I can't point to direct examples deriving from it: the French film industry is insanely bureaucratic, and has been at least since the war. Most directors don't get to direct their first film till they are nearly fifty years old, because the government controls that through essentially a guild system, and bureaucrats decide when you've "paid your dues" enough to get permission to direct. (No, I don't know how the New Wave directors got around that, and I'm curious to know. The excellent Patrice Leconte, who is still working, also somehow circumvented the system and made his first movie in his twenties.)
That said, there are at least two exceptions to your thesis, though only two I can name: Brigitte Bardot and Catherine Deneuve. Both international stars in the timeframe you name.
And post-1972, I can name several French actresses who gained at least some international renown, including Isabelle Adjani, Valerie Kaprisky, and Emmanuelle Beart.
I can only make a simple guess. It's probably their insistence on making films in French. The British make films in English. The Italians make films in English. Spaghetti Westerns. The Nordic countries make English films these days. I watched a great one recently about Zombie Nazis in the Norwegian wilderness. China made English films back in the day or at least put the effort in to make official dubs. That's how Jackie Chan was discovered by the west. But still to this day France makes French films.
I think its fine. But it does mean their stars will only be national stars, as long as they don't speak the modern lingua franca.