Catherine Deneuve

Deneuve had two sisters, Françoise Dorléac (21 March 1942 – 26 June 1967) and Sylvie Dorléac (born 14 December 1946), as well as a maternal half-sister, Daniele, whom their mother had out of wedlock in 1936 with Aimé Clariond.

Deneuve used her mother's maiden name, which she chose for her stage name, in order to differentiate herself from her sisters.

Deneuve attended Catholic schools.

Catherine Fabienne Dorléac (born 22 October 1943), known professionally as Catherine Deneuve, is a French actress, producer, and model.

She is considered one of the greatest European actresses on film.

Early in her career, she gained acclaim for her portrayals of aloof and mysterious beauties for well-known directors, including Luis Buñuel, François Truffaut, Jacques Demy, Roman Polanski, and Agnès Varda.

Deneuve made her screen debut in 1957 at age 13, in a film shot the previous year when she was only 12.

Deneuve made her film debut with a small role in André Hunebelle's Les Collégiennes (1957) with her younger sister Sylvie Dorléac who, like their older half-sister Daniele, was an occasional child actress.

She subsequently appeared in several films for director Roger Vadim as well as in L'Homme à femmes (1960), which caught the eye of Jacques Demy, who cast Deneuve as Geneviève Emery in his romantic film musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), the film that brought her to stardom.

Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian wrote, "Catherine Deneuve's glassy stare of anxiety dominates the movie" comparing her to Janet Leigh in Psycho (1960).

She gained acclaim for her collaborations with Jacques Demy's starring in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), and Donkey Skin (1970).

The film received critical acclaim winning the Palme d'Or at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival.

Variety praised her performance describing her writing, "Catherine Deneuve, a winsome-looking type that other directors have forced to act, here is allowed to be herself. She etches a fine portrait of a 16-year-old in love."

The same year she acted in several films including the anthology film The World's Most Beautiful Swindlers in a segment directed by Claude Chabrol and the comedy Male Hunt directed by Édouard Molinaro.

She starred in Roman Polanski's Repulsion (1965), and Luis Buñuel's Belle de Jour (1967) and Tristana (1970).

Deneuve played the cold but erotic persona, for which she would be nicknamed the "ice maiden", in Roman Polanski's psychological horror thriller Repulsion (1965).

For her performance she was nominated for the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress.

In 1966 she starred in the Agnes Varda fantasy film Les Créatures and Jean-Paul Rappeneau's A Matter of Resistance.

The following year, she reunited with Demy for another musical The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) acting alongside George Chakiris and Gene Kelly.

She played a twin to her real-life older sister, Françoise Dorléac (as Solange), in what would be their only film together, Dorléac died in a car accident a few months after the movie opened.

That same year she starred in Luis Buñuel's psychological erotic drama Belle de Jour (1967).

Deneuve stars as a young woman who spends her midweek afternoons as a high-class prostitute, while her husband is at work.

For her performance, she received a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

Melissa Anderson writing for Criterion declared, "Deneuve’s performance in Belle de jour turned out to be one of her most iconic".

In 1969, Deneuve starred in Stuart Rosenberg's American romantic comedy film The April Fools, starring opposite Jack Lemmon.

That same year she acted in François Truffaut's romantic crime drama Mississippi Mermaid acting alongside Jean-Paul Belmondo.

The New York Times film critic Vincent Canby praised the film writing, "As in all of Truffaut's films, love leads only to an uncertain future that, at best, may contain some joy along with the inevitable misery. Truffaut's special talent, however, is for communicating a sense of the value of that joy."

She reunited with Buñel for the drama Tristana (1970) acting alongside Fernando Rey and Franco Nero.

Her work for Buñuel would be her best known.

That same year, she reunited with Jacques Demy for the musical fantasy Donkey Skin (1970) based off the 1965 fairy tale of the same name by Charles Perrault.

Roger Ebert praised the film writing, "It provides a visual feast and fanciful imaginations, and Deneuve was then, as she was before and since, a great beauty with the confidence such beauty requires."

In 1971, Deneuve starred in Nadine Trintignant's It Only Happens to Others opposite Marcello Mastroianni.

She also starred in Marco Ferreri's Italian drama Liza (1972), Jean-Pierre Melville's French crime film Un flic (1972), and Jacques Demy's French comedy A Slightly Pregnant Man (1973).

She starred in Robert Aldrich's crime film Hustle (1975) with Burt Reynolds.

Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune awarded a full four stars out of four and wrote that "violence takes a back seat to character development and storytelling techniques that are classical. Hustle is the kind of picture you don't want to see end. It's going to be a cult favorite."

Her other notable films include The Hunger (1983), Indochine (1992), My Favourite Season (1993), Place Vendôme (1998), Dancer in the Dark (2000), 8 Women (2002), and The Truth (2019).

She has received numerous accolades over her career including two César Awards, and the Venice Film Festival's Volpi Cup for Best Actress as well as nominations for an Academy Award, and BAFTA Award.

In 1985, she succeeded Mireille Mathieu as the official face of Marianne, France's national symbol of liberty.

She has received honorary awards, including the Berlin International Film Festival's Golden Bear in 1998, the Cannes Film Festival's Honorary Palme d'Or in 2005, and the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion in 2022.

Deneuve was born Catherine Fabienne Dorléac in Paris, the daughter of French stage actors Maurice Dorléac and Renée Simonot.