In 1981 the company was taken over by the Schwarzhaupt group of Cologne, who marketed Robbe products throughout Europe.
However, Alvina appeared regularly on the French screen, both cinema and television, throughout the 1970s chiefly in nymphet roles, working with such directors as Gérard Blain, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, and Alain Robbe-Grillet, Alvina's highest career profile probably being afforded by the Robbe-Grillet films Glissements progressifs du plaisir (1974) and Le Jeu avec le feu (fr) (1975).
He has translated several books of French origin, including Virginie Despentes' novel Baise Moi (which was later adapted into a controversial film); the writers Robbe-Grillet, Pierre Guyotat, Sollers, Benoît Duteurtre, Grégoire Bouillier, Philippe Djian, Martin Page and Nelly Arcan; and, though it is quite far away from his usual subject matter, the autobiography of Céline Dion.
He gained international marketing experience at global companies in Europe and Asia and cooperated with leading German luxury brands such as Glashütte Original, Meissen, Mercedes Benz/Daimler, Poggenpohl and Robbe & Berking.
Sarraute became, along with Robbe-Grillet, Claude Simon, Marguerite Duras, and Michel Butor, one of the figures most associated with the rise of this new trend in writing, which sought to radically transform traditional narrative models of character and plot.
"La reprise", 2001 novel by Alain Robbe-Grillet, translated into English as Repetition
In 2008 Robbe started production of the documentary ‘’ACT UP! the Movie’’, with executive producer Gus Van Sant, about the history of the AIDS activist group of the same name (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power).