Deneuve, Catherine

(1943- )

   Actress. Catherine Deneuve is one of France's most celebrated film actresses. The actor Maurice Dorléac is her father, and the actress Françoise Dorléac was her sister. Deneuve went into the family business, but took her mother's name as a stage name, not her father's.

   Deneuve made her film debut in André Hunébelle's Les Collégiennes in 1957. She went on to do a number of other films with remarkable directors, including Marc Allégret's Les Parisiennes (1962), Roger Vadim's Le Vice et la vertu (1963), Pierre Kast's Les Vacances portugaises (1963), and Jacques Demy's popular and critically acclaimed Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1964). Deneuve won the Etoile de Cristal de l'Académie du Cinéma for Best Actress for her performance in the film. Other films made during this early, "starlet" part of her career include Edouard Molinero's Chasse à l'hommes (1964), Claude Chabrol and Jean-Luc Godard's Les Plus belles escroqueries du monde (1964), Roman Polanski's Repulsion (1965), Jean-Paul Rappeneau's La Vie de Château (1966), and Demy's Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (1967).

   There was a turning point of sorts in her career in 1967, when she starred in Luis Bunuel's Belle de jour (1967). The film, which scandalized some in France, established Deneuve as a serious actress, allowing her to shed her starlet aura. The range of roles she was able to play increased from that point forward. She appeared in such films as François Truffaut's La Sirène du Mississipi (1969), Demy's Peau d'âne (1970), Bunuel's Tristana (1970), Jean-Pierre Melville's Un flic (1972), Rappeneau's Le Sauvage (1975), Claude Lelouch's Si c'était à refaire (1976) and A nous deux (1979), Yves Robert's Courage fuyons (1979), and Truffaut's Le Dernier métro (1980), a film for which she won the César for Best Actress.

   In 1985, Deneuve's cultural standing was demonstrated by the fact that her face was used as the model for the statue of Marianne, the symbol of the French Republic. Another indication of this cultural prestige is her appearance in a number of heritage films, including Alain Corneau's Fort Saganne (1984), Régis Wargnier's Indochine (1992), and Raoul Ruiz's Le temps retrouvés (1999), an adaptation of the novel by Marcel Proust. She won a César for Best Actress and was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in Indochine.

   Other films in which Deneuve has appeared include André Téchiné's Le Lieu du crime (1986), Ma saison preférée (1993), Les voleurs (1996), and Les temps qui changent (2004), Philippe de Broca's L'Africain (1983), Jean-Pierre Mocky's Agent Trouble (1987), Alain Resnais's Contre l'oubli (1991), Ruiz's Généaologies d'un crime (1997), Léos Carax's Pola X (1999), Wargnier's Est-Ouest (1999), and François Ozon's 8 femmes (2002).

   In 1998, Deneuve won the award for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival for her performance in Nicole Garcia's Place Vendôme, and the Silver Bear for life achievement at Berlin in 1999. She has acted in several international productions, including Sergio Citti's Casotto (1977), Dick Richards's March or Die (1977), Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark (2000), Peter Hyams's The Musketeer (2001), Tonie Marshall's Au plus près du paradis (2002), and Manoel de Oliveira's O Convento (1995) and Un Filme Falado (2003).

   Historical Dictionary of French Cinema by Dayna Oscherwitz & Mary Ellen Higgins