Catherine Deneuve

And it is that there are more than a hundred films that make up the filmography of Catherine Deneuve, a vintage that not many actresses can exhibit. She keeps her illusion of youth intact: “My ambition is to make films that interest me, with directors that interest me.” But that artistic facet has often been forgotten by viewers, captivated by the enormous beauty of La Deneuve, one of those stunning blondes that cinema catapults from time to time into a cultural phenomenon. And although in the United States her career did not materialize, in Europe she was always considered from the successful beginning of her one of the great divas of the seventh art.

Born in Paris on October 22, 1943, Catherine Deneuve, whose real name is Catherine Fabienne Dorléac, is the daughter of Maurice Dorléac, also an actor, and Renée Deneuve, an occasional theater actress. She is the third of four sisters, one of whom, the also actress Françoise Dorléac , died in a traffic accident in 1967, when she was only twenty-five years old. According to her account, Catherine, she lived in a very close family and had a normal childhood, without luxuries but without hardships, feeling like a very loved girl. And although happy, over the years Catherine was also somewhat shy and she did not like to dress elegantly or attend black-tie balls. She liked, yes, sing and dance. She very soon became interested in cinema and she remembers her fascination as a child towards the poster ofWhen the Marabunta Roars , a film that his father did not let him see due to his young age. Later, around the age of 15, she went with her friends to see movies by great directors like Sergei M. Eisenstein or Orson Welles and she became a regular at movie clubs. And it was at that teenage age, while still in school, that she was offered her first role in a movie.

Her older sister Françoise had already started working as an actress and had asked Catherine to accompany her on set. And the director noticed her. Following her parental permission, she made her debut in Les collégiennes (1957) under the name Catherine Dorléac. After her, the actress returned to her studies at school, until years later they came back to her. In 1960 she filmed with her sisterLes portes claquent , already adopting her mother’s last name in her stage name so that she would not be confused with Françoise. And that same year, she shared a film with two movie greats, Danielle Darrieux and Mel Ferrer , inL’homme à femmes . Catherine knew that they chose her because of her photogenicity and the actress did not take her career very seriously, in the sense that she did not conceive of it as a job and a dedication to her life. That would come later. Meanwhile, she continued shooting discreet films, such asThe Parisians (1962),Et Satan conduit le bal (1962) orLe vice et la vertu (1963). The highlight of those movies was that he worked on them, as a writer or as a director, Roger Vadim . Catherine fell madly in love with him: “I left my parents, who were very sad. But I was very much in love and I went to live with him”. With Vadim the actress had her son Christian, when she was only 19 years old: “She had an absolutely incredible desire to have children.” However, the couple soon broke up and Catherine was left with her son to care for her, a responsibility that according to her was too great for a twenty-year-old girl.

The key moment in her career was when Jacques Demy signed her to star inThe Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1963), a delicious musical in which Catherine did wonders with her voice and achieved instant fame. She had just given birth and was not sure if she was going to be an actress. “The movie was really my birth to the movies,” Deneuve said. From that moment she began to participate in larger films, with great directors. In 1965 she began to carve out that fame as a hermetic and distant woman, a label that she would accompany her forever. The truth is that inRoman Polanski ‘s Repulsion was perfect in her role as an unbalanced young woman. Around this time she married photographer and later film director David Bailey . The marriage lasted until 1972 when they both divorced. Catherine Deneuve never married again and on one occasion she even declared with resignation and sadness the reason: “I see no reason to get married when there is a divorce.”

In 1967 he reprized in another charming Demy musical,The ladies of Rochefort , where she was accompanied by her sister Françoise, who would die shortly after in an accident. Her death “was the greatest pain of my life,” she says, and she states: “For years I felt like a zombie. (…). I became a major actress but felt completely disconnected from reality.” Her first job with Luis Buñuel ,Bella de día , dates from that same year, and although it is her most famous film with the director of Calanda, she prefersTristana (1970). Regarding Buñuel, she does not hesitate to affirm that her relationship with him “cannot be called friendship. He was stern, gloomy, and we didn’t go beyond a professional relationship. He related more to the actors.” In 1969, François Truffaut , another of the directors who has made the most of the actress, entered the fray in his career. With him he filmed La estupendaThe Mississippi Mermaid , opposite Jean-Paul Belmondo . And eleven years later he would repeat with the director in another of his best and most exciting films,The last meter In between she had tried Hollywood with no luck, withThe Fools of April and then filmed the film noirBlack Chronicle (1972), with the great Jean-Pierre Melville . He had also met Marcello Mastroianni , with whom he made a good handful of movies, such asAnguish of a love (1971),Lisa (1972),You can’t trust the stork (1973) orDon’t Touch the White Woman (1974). Deneuve’s relationship with the French star went beyond the professional and both maintained a long idyll, the fruit of which was Deneuve’s second daughter: Chiara Mastroianni , born in 1972.

The filmography of the actress kept growing and growing during the 80s and 90s, but without very memorable titles, although she worked with prestigious French filmmakers such as Alain Corneau (Fort Saganne ), André Téchiné (The place of the crimeMy favorite stationThe Thieves ), Régis Wargnier (Indochina , winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film,The Promised Life ), Manoel de Oliveira (The Convent ) or Nicole Garcia (Place Vendôme ). But among his filmography there are also some unique titles, such asThe Craving (1983), a strange vampire drama film directed by Tony Scott , the extraordinaryDance in the Dark (2000), by Lars von Trier or the TV miniseriesPrincess Mary (2004). And in recent times, this great lady of cinema has stood out in films like8 women (2002),Royal Palace! (2005),A Christmas Carol (2008) ,The Girl on the Train (2009) andPotiche, women in power (2011).