Catherine Deneuve

About Catherine Deneuve

Catherine Deneuve (French IPA: [katʁin dəˈnœv], born October 22, 1943) is a two-time Cesar Award-winning, BAFTA Award-nominated and Academy Award-nominated French actress. She has made her reputation playing a series of beautiful ice maidens for various directors, including Luis Buñuel and Roman Polanski.

Deneuve was born Catherine Fabienne Dorléac in Paris, one of four daughters to French stage and film actor Maurice Dorléac and actress Renée Deneuve. She made her screen debut at the age of 13, with a role in the 1956 film Les Collégiennes, and went on to make several films with directors such as Roger Vadim before getting her breakthrough role in Jacques Demy's musical Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1964).

The burst of stardom that accompanied Deneuve's portrayal led to two of her archetypal ice-maiden roles, first in Roman Polanski's Repulsion in 1965 and then in Buñuel's 1967 Belle de Jour. Deneuve's startling portrayal of an icy, sexually adventurous housewife in the latter film helped to establish her as one of the most remarkable and compelling actresses of her generation. She further demonstrated her talent that year in Demy's Umbrellas musical follow-up, Les Demoiselles de Rochefort, which she starred in with her sister, Françoise Dorléac.