Biography from Baseline's Encyclopedia of Film
Occupation: Actress
Birth Name: Catherine Dorléac
Born: October 22, 1943, Paris, France
Entered films as a teenager using her actress mother's maiden name and appeared in
several routine movies such as Les Portes Claquent (1960) with elder sister Françoise
Dorléac. Her youthfulness mirrored the sparkle of Jacques Demy's playful musical
The
Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), and Deneuve became a leading international star. Later an
icy charm would brilliantly embody contemporary repression and ennui in Roman Polanski's
Repulsion (1965) along with Luis Buñuel's
Belle de Jour (1967) and
Tristana (1970). Hollywood has occasionally beckoned the
stunningly photogenic Deneuve, but neither the romantic comedy of The April
Fools (1969)
nor the neo-noir Hustle (1975) garnered her the popular acclaim she (and the films)
deserved.
Although her impassive quality has produced powerfully underplayed performances
studded with sexual tension (François
Truffaut's The Last Metro (1980) André Téchiné's
Scene of the Crime (1986)), too often she has merely decorated films, cast as obligatory romantic
heroines. 1983's The Hunger polarized critics who either despised or delighted in the
decadent vampires whose modishness brought the former model's career around full circle. Deneuve ill-advisedly ventured into production with
A Strange Place to Meet in 1988, but
had by then become thoroughly institutionalized by the French Republic, which chose her
profile as the model for symbolic "Marianne" statues to be displayed across the
country. Her indelible, glossy womanliness earmarked her casting in
Indochine (1992), in
which she played an ideal Frenchwoman who has never seen her native land; this performance
brought her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.
Daughter of veteran French actor
Maurice Dorléac, Deneuve was formerly married to photographer David Bailey and has
children by director Roger Vadim and actor Marcello Mastroianni.
Back
to Biographies
|

Classroom
Maps & Globes

Bulletin Board Maps
Hand Painted Furniture
Accent Furniture
visit..
1-World Decor

Global Accent
Furniture

Old World Globe Bars
|