French postcard by Editions d'art Yvon, Paris, no. 40-110-07. Photo: Park Film / KIM. Publicity still for
Peau d'âne/Donkey Skin (Jacques Demy, 1970). Caption: 'La Princesse reçoit la peau d'âne' (The princess receives the donkey skin).
The umbrellas of Cherbourg
Catherine Deneuve was born
Catherine Fabienne Dorléac in 1943, in Paris, France. She was the third of four daughters to the stage actors
Maurice Dorléac and
Renée Deneuve, who was the French voice of
Esther Williams, and whose name Catherine uses. Her sisters were actress
Françoise Dorléac,
Sylvie Dorléac and
Danielle Dorléac.
When Catherine was 13 she had the opportunity to play in
Les Collégiennes/The Twilight Girls (André Hunebelle, 1956) during the summer school holidays with her sister
Sylvie, and she accepted because she was curious to see how a film was made. She was credited as
Catherine Dorléac. She began using her mother's maiden name professionally in 1960, to differentiate herself from her sister
Françoise Dorléac, then an upcoming actress.
Catherine continued with small parts in minor films until she met film director
Roger Vadim, the former husband of
Brigitte Bardot. Stunning and only 17 years old, Deneuve and the 32-year-old Vadim began romancing. She dyed her naturally brown hair blonde to please Vadim, who gave her a leading part in the
Marquis de Sade adaptation
Le vice et la vertu/Vice and Virtue (Roger Vadim, 1963).
Her breakthrough came the next year with the musical
Les parapluies de Cherbourg/The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Demy, 1964) in which she gave an unforgettable performance as a romantic middle-class girl who falls in love with a young soldier (
Nino Castelnuovo) but gets imprisoned in a loveless marriage with another man (
Marc Michel). The film was nominated for five Academy Awards.
Demy also cast Deneuve in the less successful
Les demoiselles de Rochefort/The Young Girls of Rochefort (Jacques Demy, 1967), with her elder sister
Françoise Dorléac. That year Françoise would die in a fatal car crash on the French Riviera, only 25 years old. The sisters were extremely close and Deneuve was devastated.
French postcard by La Cinémathèque française, no. CF 5004, 1998. Photo: Ciné Tamaris / Collection C.T.
Catherine Deneuve and
Nino Castelnuovo in
Les parapluies de Cherbourg (Jacques Demy, 1964).
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Catherine Deneuve in
Un monsieur de compagnie/I Was a Male Sex Bomb (Philippe de Broca, 1964).
East German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2769, 1967.
Catherine Deneuve in
La costanza della ragione/The consistency of reason (Pasquale Festa Campanile, 1964).
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 147.
Catherine Deneuve in
Benjamin ou Les mémoires d'un puceau/The Diary of an Innocent Boy (Michel Deville, 1967).
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 120. Photo:
Françoise Dorléac and
Catherine Deneuve in
Les Demoiselles de Rochefort/The Young Girls of Rochefort (Jacques Demy, 1967).
Belle de jour
Catherine Deneuve had her English-speaking film debut in
Roman Polanski’s shocking psychological thriller
Repulsion (Roman Polanski, 1965). She delivered a creepy performance, as Carol, a sexually repressed, paranoid schizophrenic. Her descent into madness results in her murdering men who lust after her.
Deneuve was again a sensation as a bored housewife who fulfils her sexual fantasies while working as an afternoon call girl in
Luis Buñuel’s masterpiece
Belle de jour/Beauty of the Day (Luis Buñuel, 1967) with
Jean Sorel and
Michel Piccoli.
James Travers at
French Films: "The casting of Catherine Deneuve as Séverine is a marvellous example of serendipity. At the time, she was in a relationship with the film director
François Truffaut, who was so impressed with her acting skill that he lobbied Buñuel to give her a lead role in his next film. Buñuel was initially lukewarm towards Deneuve and insisted that she should not perform. Ever the professional, Deneuve obliged and delivered a non-performance par excellence that was perfectly suited for the film. It is the actress’s ice-cold aloofness and the tight grip she has on her emotions that makes her so perfect for the role of Séverine."
She also worked with the Spanish director on
Tristana (Luis Buñuel, 1970), in which she again portrayed an innocent beauty exploited by a lecherous older man, this time played by
Fernando Rey. Unlike in
Belle de Jour, her character in
Tristana achieved independence and eventually exacted revenge on the man who exploited her. The film garnered an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. She gave another great performance in a dual role opposite
Jean-Paul Belmondo in
La sirène du Mississipi/Mississipi Mermaid (François Truffaut, 1969, a kind of apotheosis of her ‘beautiful ice maiden’ persona. When their private relationship failed, Truffaut reportedly had a nervous breakdown.
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 165.
Catherine Deneuve in
Manon 70/French Mistress (Jean Aurel, 1968).
French postcard by Éditions Hazan, Paris, in the Collection Magie Noire, no. 6435, 1994. Photo: Raymond Depardon / Magnum Photos.
Catherine Deneuve in
La chamade/Heartbeat (Alain Cavalier, 1968).
French postcard in the Collection Magie Noire by Éditions Hazan, Paris, no. 6247, 1991.
Catherine Deneuve and
Jean-Paul Belmondo in
La Sirène du Mississipi/Mississippi Mermaid (François Truffaut, 1969).
French postcard by Cinetamaris and Arte Video to promote the DVD and CD box 'Intégrale Jacques Demy'. Photo: M.P. Lavoix / Succession Demy.
Catherine Deneuve in
Peau d'âne/Monkey Skin (Jacques Demy, 1970).
French postcard, no. C139. Photo:
Catherine Deneuve,
Michel Piccoli and
Darry Cowl in
Touche pas la femme blanche/Don't Touch the White Woman! (Marco Ferreri, 1974).
Chanel no. 5
Catherine Deneuve was the muse of fashion designer
Yves Saint-Laurent, who dressed her for
Belle de jour,
La chamade/Heartbeat (Alain Cavalier, 1968),
La sirène du Mississipi,
Un flic/A Cop (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1972),
Liza (Marco Ferreri, 1972) and
The Hunger (Tony Scott, 1983). She was also the face of Chanel no. 5 in the 1970s and caused sales of the perfume to soar.
In the US, the press nominated her as 'the world's most elegant woman'. She appeared then in two American movies, the comedy
The April Fools (Stuart Rosenberg, 1969) opposite
Jack Lemmon, and the crime drama
Hustle (Robert Aldrich, 1975) with
Burt Reynolds. However, she remained active in European films during the 1970s, although she didn't find parts of the same calibre as her roles in the 1960s.
Deneuve reunited with
Jacques Demy for the fairytale
Peau d'âne/Donkey Skin (Jacques Demy, 1970) with
Jean Marais, and made five films together with
Marcello Mastroianni:
Ça n'arrive qu'aux autres/It Only Happens to Others (Nadine Trintignant, 1971),
Liza (Marco Ferreri, 1972),
L'événement le plus important depuis que l'homme a marché sur la lune/A Slightly Pregnant Man (Jacques Demy, 1973),
Touche pas à la femme blanche/Don't Touch the White Woman! (Marco Ferreri, 1974), and
Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma/A Hundred and One Nights of Simon Cinema (Agnès Varda, 1995).
In 1989, she was back with a magnificent role in
Le dernier métro/The Last Metro (François Truffaut, 1980) as a stage actress in Nazi-occupied Paris. It was the first of six films in which she starred opposite
Gérard Depardieu. For her performance, she won a César Award, and the film, which won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, revived her international career.
Deneuve played a bisexual vampire in the slick
The Hunger (Tony Scott, 1983), with
David Bowie and
Susan Sarandon. The role brought her a significant lesbian following. Her appearance in the romantic thriller,
Le Lieu de crime/Scene of the Crime (André Techiné, 1986), with
Danielle Darrieux, was also well-received.
French postcard by Sofraneme, Levallois Perret, 1980.
French postcard by E.D.U.G., Paris, no. 506. Photo: Sam Lévin.
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo:
Catherine Deneuve and
Alain Delon in
Le choc/Shock (Robin Davis, 1982).
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 43 072. Photo:
Catherine Deneuve and
Jean-Louis Trintignant in
Le bon plaisir (Francis Girod, 1984).
French postcard by Les Cartophiles du pays Nantes / Office du Tourisme, Nantes, no. CPN 197. Photo: Yannick Pasquet.
Richard Bohringer and
Catherine Deneuve on the set of
La reine blanche/The White Queen (Jean-Loup Hubert, 1991). The film was shot in Trentemoult between 17 June and 9 August 1990.
Dancer in the Dark
Catherine Deneuve has never performed in the theatre due to stage fright. However, she is universally hailed as one of the ‘grandes dames’ of the French cinema, joining
Michèle Morgan,
Danielle Darrieux,
Simone Signoret,
Jeanne Moreau,
Isabelle Huppert, and
Juliette Binoche.
During the 1990s, Deneuve continued to appear in a large number of films. She was very good opposite
Vincent Perez in the epic drama
Indochine/Indochina (Regis Warnier, 1992) as a plantation owner in the 1930s. For this role, she earned her first Academy Award nomination and a second César Award.
She starred in several films by
André Téchiné, including
Ma saison préférée/My Favorite Season (1993) and
Les Voleurs/The Thieves (1995), with
Daniel Auteuil. She joined the documentary
L'Univers de Jacques Demy (Agnès Varda, 1995), to show tribute to the director who made the film that brought her to fame.
In 1998, she won acclaim and the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival for her performance as a jewellers widow in
Place Vendôme (Nicole Garcia, 1998) and in 1999 she appeared in five films,
Est-Ouest/East-West (Régis Wargnier, 1999),
Pola X (Leos Carax, 1999),
Belle-maman/Beautiful Mother (Gabriel Aghion, 1999), and
Le vent de la nuit/The Wind of the Night (Philippe Garrel, 1999) and the wonderful
Le temps retrouvé/Marcel Proust's Time Regained (Raoul Ruiz, 1999) with
Emmanuelle Béart and
John Malkovich.
The following year, she surprised everyone with her portrayal of the factory worker sidekick of Icelandic singer
Bjork in the melancholy musical
Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier, 2000). She had seen Von Trier’s
Breaking the Waves (1996) and was so impressed with the Danish director; that she wrote him a letter requesting a part in one of his upcoming projects. He obliged, and her performance provided further proof that she was much more than a pretty face, and had always been. Though it polarised critics and audiences alike, the film was selected for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
French postcard by Editions La Malibran, Paris, no. MC 18.
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.
Vintage postcard, no. 2071.
French postcard by Editions F. Nugeron, no. 71. Photo: J. Ritchie.
Belgian Freecard by Boomerang. Photo: Mandarin Cinema.
Catherine Deneuve in
Potiche/Trophy Wife (François Ozon, 2010). Caption: Chipie.
8 Femmes
In 2002,
Catherine Deneuve shared the Silver Bear Award for Best Ensemble Cast at the Berlin International Film Festival for her performance in the musical comedy
8 Femmes/8 Women (François Ozon, 2002). It was another triumph. In 2005 she published her diary 'A l'ombre de moi-meme' (Close Up and Personal: The Private Diaries of Catherine Deneuve), in which she writes about her experiences shooting the films
Indochine, and
Dancer in the Dark.
At the unheard-of age of 62, she signed a deal with Mac Cosmetics in 2006, and a year later, nabbed a contract modelling for
Louis Vuitton. She voiced the mother in
Persepolis (Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi, 2007), an animated film based on Satrapi´s graphic novel of the same name. Her daughter
Chiara Mastroianni voiced the anti-Disney heroine, a rebellious, teenage Iranian girl who loves heavy metal. The edgy animated feature was nominated for an Academy Award.
In 2008, Deneuve appeared in her 100th film,
Un conte de Noël/A Christmas Tale (Arnaud Desplechin, 2008). However, she continued to work steadily making at least two or three films per year. She reunited with director
François Ozon for the hilarious comedy
Potiche/Trophy Wife (2010) and was the Queen of England in the comic book adaptation
Astérix et Obélix: Au service de Sa Majesté/Astérix and Obélix: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Laurent Tirard, 2012). In both films, she co-starred with
Gérard Depardieu. Mark Deming writes at AllMovie in his review of
Potiche: "They just don't make movie stars like Catherine Deneuve anymore. It's not just a matter of her beauty, though she's still a radiantly lovely woman at the age of 67 - Deneuve has the rare ability to seem perfectly naturalistic while firmly holding the screen with her presence, and she can effortlessly play both comedy and drama, sometimes moving back and forth between both in a single picture without ever seeming less than authentic."
The following year, she could be seen in the cinema opposite
Mylène Demongeot in
Elle s'en va/She Leaves (Emmanuelle Bercot, 2013). Since then, she appeared in writer/director
Pierre Salvadori's comedy-drama
Dans la cour/In the Courtyard (2014), and
André Téchiné's drama
L'Homme qu'on aimait trop/In the Name of My Daughter (2014). The latter is a fictionalised account of the true story of the events surrounding the life of
Agnès Le Roux, a casino's heiress, before and after her unresolved disappearance in the fall of 1977. Deneuve also co-starred alongside
Catherine Frot, in writer/director
Martin Provost's French drama
Sage femme/The Midwife (2017).
Catherine Deneuve's only marriage was from 1965 to 1972 with British photographer
David Bailey. The couple divorced in 1972 but remained friends. Deneuve has two children: actor
Christian Vadim (1963), from her relationship with
Roger Vadim, and
Chiara Mastroianni (1972), from her relationship with
Marcello Mastroianni. She is now the grandmother of
Milo (1997) and
Anna (2003) and resides in the luxurious neighbourhood of Saint Germain des Pres in Paris. In November 2019, the actress suffered a mild stroke but there was no damage to her motor functions. Five weeks later, she was released from the hospital and spent the remainder of 2019 recuperating at her Paris home. Since then she acted in the films
De son vivant/Peaceful (Emmanuelle Bercot, 2021) with
Benoît Magimel and the biographical comedy
Bernadette (Léa Domenach, 2023) with Deneuve in the titular role of
Bernadette Chirac, French politician and the widow of the former president
Jacques Chirac. More than 65 years after her debut,
Catherine Deneuve continues to be one of the major stars of European cinema.
Dutch postcard by Cinemien / Lumière.
Catherine Deneuve in
8 Femmes/8 Women (François Ozon, 2002). Interestingly, the card was published to promote another Deneuve film,
Sage femme/The Midwife (Martin Provost, 2017).
Dutch promotion card by Cherry Pickers Film.
Catherine Deneuve (far left) in
Fête de Famille/Happy Birthday (Cédric Kahn, 2019).
Commercial Chanel No. 5. Source: Ralf Bayer (YouTube).
British trailer
Potiche/Trophy Wife (2011). Source: Studio Canal UK (YouTube).
Sources:
Geoff Andrew (The Guardian),
Thanassis Agathos (IMDb),
Rebecca Flint Marx (AllMovie),
Jason Buchanan (AllMovie),
James Travers (French Films),
French Films,
Wikipedia and
IMDb.
