Biography for
Catherine Deneuve More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

22 October 1943, Paris, France

Birth Name

Catherine Fabienne Dorléac

Height

5' 6" (1.68 m)

Mini Biography

Catherine Deneuve was born in 1943, in Paris, France. Her parents were actors. She made her movie debut in 1957, when she was a teenager and continued with small parts in minor films, until Roger Vadim gave her a meatier part in Le vice et la vertu (1963). But her breakthrough came with the excellent musical Les parapluies de Cherbourg (1964) in which she gave an unforgettable performance as a romantic middle-class girl who falls in love with a young soldier but gets imprisoned in a loveless marriage with another man; the director was the gifted Jacques Demy who also cast Deneuve in the less successful Les demoiselles de Rochefort (1967). She then played a schizophrenic killer in Roman Polanski's Repulsion (1965) and a married woman who works as a part-time prostitute every afternoon in Luis Buñuel's masterpiece Belle de jour (1967). She also worked with Buñuel in Tristana (1970) and gave a great performance for François Truffaut in La sirène du Mississipi (1969), a kind of apotheosis of her "frigid femme fatale" persona. In the 1970s, she didn't find parts of that caliber, but her magnificent work in Truffaut's Le dernier métro (1980) as a stage actress in Nazi-occupied Paris revived her career. She was also very good in the recent epic drama Indochine (1992) for which she earned her first Academy Award Nominaton (Best Actress). Although the elegant and always radiant Deneuve has never appeared on stage, she is universally hailed as one of the "grandes dames" of French cinema, joining a list that includes such illustrious talents as Simone Signoret, Jeanne Moreau, Isabelle Huppert, and the younger Juliette Binoche.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Thanassis Agathos

Spouse

David Bailey

(19 August 1965 - 1972) (divorced)

Trivia

1995: Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#38).

An archetype for Gallic beauty, she succeeded Brigitte Bardot as the model for Marianne, the symbol of the French Republic seen on French coins and stamps.

October 1997: Ranked #89 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list.

6/18/63: son Christian Vadim born. Father is Roger Vadim.

5/28/72: Daughter Chiara Mastroianni born. Father is Marcello Mastroianni.

Catherine is the third of four daughters born to the French actors Maurice Dorléac and Renée Deneuve (whose name she uses).

Sister of Françoise Dorléac, Sylvie Dorléac and Danielle Dorléac (b.1946).

She liked Breaking the Waves (1996) by Lars von Trier so much that she wrote a personal letter to him, asking him for a role in a film of his. The result of this is her part in Dancer in the Dark (2000).

Has never performed in the theatre due to stage fright.

1994: Festival tribute at the Créteil International Women's Film Festival, France.

Was once fashion designer Yves Saint-Laurent's muse, who dressed her for the films Belle de jour (1967), La chamade (1968), La sirène du Mississipi (1969), and Un flic (1972).

Had a brand of perfume named after her.

Measurements: 33 1/2-24-35 (1965 - "My bust is small."), 34 1/2B-25 1/2-36 (in 1985) (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine).

She speaks fluent Italian and French, as well as semi-fluent English and German.

Marilyn Monroe is her favorite actress, and The Misfits (1961) is her favorite movie starring Marilyn.

1994: Vice president of jury at the Cannes Film Festival.

Is a grandmother. Her granddaughter is named Anna (b.2003) and her grandson is Milo (b.1997).

Former mother-in-law of singer Benjamin Biolay.

Her role in La sirène du Mississipi (1969) was played by Angelina Jolie in Original Sin (2001), the American remake of the movie.

Published her diary "A l'ombre de moi-meme" (In my shadow) in which she writes about the shootings of Indochine (1992), and Dancer in the Dark (2000) (2005).

Sang duets with Bernadette Lafont (1975), Gérard Depardieu (1980), Malcolm McLaren (1993), Joe Cocker (1995) and Alain Souchon (1997). In 1981, she released an album with songs of Serge Gainsbourg.

Designer of glasses, shoes, jewelry, and greetings cards.

1988: Member of the international jury of the Shangaï Television festival.

Her performance as Séverine Sérizy in Belle de jour (1967) is ranked #59 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).

She had a relationship with François Truffaut in the 1970s. When the relationship failed, Truffaut had a nervous breakdown. Deneuve attended his funeral in 1984 and later appeared in 8 femmes (2002) with Fanny Ardant, who was Truffaut's partner at the time of his death and the mother of his youngest daughter.

2006: Head juror of the Venice Film Festival.

She and Marcello Mastroianni made five movies together: Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma (1995), Liza (1972), Touche pas à la femme blanche (1974), Ça n'arrive qu'aux autres (1971), and L'événement le plus important depuis que l'homme a marché sur la lune (1973).

2005: Guest of Belgrade Film Festival - FEST 2005.

Ex-sister-in-law of Ruggero Mastroianni.

"Me and Catherine Deneuve Split up" is a song by Eton Crop.

Song "Catherine Deneuve and the Deus ex machina" is sung by band Kelly and the Kellygirls.

Juan Antonio Canta sings a song called "Catherine Deneuve".

As of the 5th edition of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (edited by Steven Jay Schneider), she ties, with Mae Marsh (most of whose performances amount to cameos), as the most represented actress with 7 films. Included are the Deneuve films Les parapluies de Cherbourg (1964), Repulsion (1965), Les demoiselles de Rochefort (1967), Belle de jour (1967), Tristana (1970), Le dernier métro (1980) and Dancer in the Dark (2000).

Personal Quotes

People who know me know I'm strong, but I'm vulnerable.

I'm lucky. I'm getting older with some directors who are getting older.

I don't see any reason for marriage when there is divorce.

To work is a noble art.

A star remains pinned on a wall in the public imagination.

But being a film actor is very different from, say, a theater actor. You get involved with a character after spending a long time waiting, and this demands a lot of energy and concentration. So I am very involved with the character, but I have to leave it as soon as it's finished. And also, you always have to be at the right level when it's time to shoot, which is not always the best time for the actor. Sometimes, if you're shooting a complicated scene, you have to stay in a position and wait for the technician to do his job, and then you have to be where you're supposed to be, right on the spot. You don't rehearse all that much on films. If I think of the amount of time I spend on set compared with the time spent shooting, it's ridiculously short.

But that's what I like about film - it can be bizarre, classic, normal, romantic. Cinema is to me the most versatile thing.

Directors have to push me because I never start [high] and then need to be pushed down; I have to be pushed up. Not all the time, but often.

I find sometimes that it's more difficult to do very simple, low-key films, like I've done with André Téchiné. Sometimes, at the end of a shoot with him, I feel very down, like I'm leaving something because these are low-key but novel characters. But when you do films like Repulsion (1965) or musicals, where you have to play someone so far away from yourself, what I do is I come in the morning and get involved in the character, but I'm always very pleased to leave it at night and have my life. No, I don't live that much with the character. I find it hard enough having to spend so many hours with the character during the day. Because you don't act all the time and you spend a long time waiting, but you still have to support this character all day long.

[on her looks] I know that if I didn't look the way I looked, I would never have started in films. That, I remember, and I know I have to accept it.

I like to be directed, it's true. If I didn't like that, I'd do something else. Being an actor means being an instrument for someone else.

I'm not always the nicest person to meet, because I forget very easily that I'm an actress when I'm not working. I live very normally, I go out with my friends, we go to the movies, I queue, we go to restaurants. Then if something happens to remind me that I'm an actress then I become a little different and things become a little heavy. I like the advantages; I know it's not right but I like being famous when it's convenient for me and completely anonymous when it's not.

Interestingly, people who have come to visit me on set - which I don't like - they're very surprised and say that I'm not the person they know. I'm not available to them, I cannot go off with them, I cannot get involved in their conversations, so they get the impression that they're seeing someone else. I tell them, yes, I do love to see them after a shoot, but during the shoot, I am with the people I work with. They ask, how can I stand being on a set waiting for so long, and that it must be so boring. And I have to explain that to wait, for an actor, is not at all like someone who's waiting to see the doctor. It's not the kind of wait where you get bored. Even if I try to think about something else while I'm waiting, I am living with the film, with the scene. But I do often feel tired during the day, and I'm lucky because I can go to sleep very easily, for even 10 to 15 minutes, even if I'm in costume or under a wig, so I do.

Interviews are written by someone else - the journalist makes the decision to add or take things away and I couldn't recognize my voice, or anything of myself in that.

What I don't like is close-ups, unless the actor is in the camera with me. I have to feel his presence. If I have to feel the presence of the camera before my partner's, it's very difficult. I love to do very long and complicated scenes. I like to have this impression that we are all working together, where you can see all the technicians and everybody is really doing the same thing at the same time. With close-ups, of course you have the crew there, but most of them are just around and it doesn't involve that many people.

[on Gene Kelly] It was mostly an aura about him. For me he was Hollywood. The way I'd imagined it as a child.

[on Jean-Louis Trintignant] I adore working with him. He's so generous, he doesn't play only for himself, but for his partner. He's also concerned with everyone on a set. That's why the technicians have great respect and tenderness for him.

I find cinema still very interesting. For me, to see a film, and to see a film and to be shown a story with actors that I like or actors that I don't know, it's always a discovery. I'm a great fan of films and I still go to see films in theaters. Even when I'm working, I try to see films. It's a desire, and it's something very important in my life. It's still something that I'm looking for, you know? It's like listening to music - it's part of my life. (2008)

My relationship to character is made up of mental things that you should not put words to. To do so would be immodest. The most decisive moment of my work around a character happens as we are shooting. That moment is so tense, so exhausting that once it is over, I need fire doors between the set and me. Back in my dressing room or in the hotel, I shut myself off, because the state I am in on set is too exhausting.

When we are filming, I can concentrate very quickly, but it does tire me out. It throws me into such a state! A trance-like state. So, what I need is either a trick for a calm type of trance or a sleepwalking trick.

I am incapable of working by myself without a director, without someone to coach me. But that doesn't tally at all with my idea of what a film character should be. I have to soak in what will happen on set, that day, the location, the light... I need to know what happens before in the story. To me that is the most important thing: to relate to a character in relation to where we are in the film. Maybe it also has to do with the fact that I have never done any real character parts. Even with Tristana, which required a bit of character acting. But Buñuel and I would talk off set, we had dinner together. The same is true of André Téchiné. We meet up but we always wind up talking about something else. And even though we have ended up talking about something unrelated, something useful has still come out of it. We have a conversation about something else but at the same time we are aware of what surrounds us, why we are here-the questions are very present in our head. But it is never straightforward. No, it is never straightforward.

(about Michael Mann) I watched Miami Vice again. I hadn't really liked it the first time round. But even so, it's a whole other way of filming, it's fascinating. There is a force, an incredible energy to it. His films are very long, but there are no gratuitous shots. When he decides to film the nape of an actor's neck, there is a real tension. It's there, it's not at all . . . an effect. It's surprising. He makes you feel the weight of things.

I was supposed to make a film with Hitchcock. It was set up North too, just like the Torn Curtain. It was going to be a spy story. At the time it was still only a synopsis. I had lunch with him in Paris and he died some months later. I would have loved to work with him.

I do prefer to start without any intention at all, rather than arrive with my own idea. I am incapable of deciding what a character is. At the same time, from the moment I have accepted the part and read the script, I know that things will circle in my mind. It won't happen all the time but nor will it ever stop entirely. But I am not obsessed, I don't have any trouble getting out of character, at night. I am always happy when filming and I am always happy to leave at night - it's true that there is always a kind of a nervous fatigue. Which I know is hidden away somewhere during the shoot. There are some things that fall into place without me doing anything. I know that now.

I am shocked when people talk about me and sum me up as: blonde, cold, and solemn. People will cling on to whatever reinforces their own assumptions about a person.

Hollywood was already changing when I went there in 1968. I love American directors. I would love to work for Francis Ford Coppola or Martin Scorsese. But they don't need European actresses.

Why should I go to the States to do a film I wouldn't consider in Europe, just because it's English-speaking?

Salary

"Les liaisons dangereuses" (2003)	610,000 euros
8 femmes (2002)	457,000 euros + 9% of the gross
Le temps retrouvé, d'après l'oeuvre de Marcel Proust (1999)	305,000 euros
Belle maman (1999)	610,000 euros

Where Are They Now

(November 2007) She visited Argentina to receive a honorary award in the San Luis Cine International Festival.

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