Catherine Deneuve was born in 1943, in Paris, France. Her parents were actors. She made her movie debut in 1957, when she was a teenager and continued with small parts in minor films, until Roger Vadim gave her a meatier part in Vice et la vertu, Le. But her breakthrough came with the excellent musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg in which she gave an unforgettable performance as a romantic middle-class girl who falls in love with a young soldier but gets imprisoned in a loveless marriage with another man; the director was the gifted Jacques Demy who also cast Deneuve in the less successful The Young Girls of Rochefort. She then played a schizophrenic killer in Roman Polanski's Repulsion and a married woman who works as a part-time prostitute every afternoon in Luis Buñuel's masterpiece Belle de jour. She also worked with Buñuel in Tristana and gave a great performance for François Truffaut in Mississippi Mermaid, a kind of apotheosis of her "frigid femme fatale" persona. In the 1970s, she didn't find parts of that caliber, but her magnificent work in Truffaut's The Last Metro as a stage actress in Nazi-occupied Paris revived her career. She was also very good in the recent epic drama Indochina for which she earned her first Academy Award Nominaton (Best Actress). Although the elegant and always radiant Deneuve has never appeared on stage, she is universally hailed as one of the "grandes dames" of French cinema, joining a list that includes such illustrious talents as Simone Signoret, Jeanne Moreau, Isabelle Huppert, and the younger Juliette Binoche.



"Les liaisons dangereuses" (2003): 610,000 euros
8 femmes (2002): 457,000 euros + 9% of the gross
Le temps retrouvé, d'après l'oeuvre de Marcel Proust (1999): 305,000 euros
Belle maman (1999): 610,000 euros

1995: Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#38). October 1997: Ranked #89 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. 5/28/72: Daughter Chiara Mastroianni born. Father is Marcello Mastroianni. Sister of Françoise Dorléac, Sylvie Dorléac and Danielle Dorléac (b.1946). Has never performed in the theatre due to stage fright. Was once fashion designer Yves Saint-Laurent's muse, who dressed her for the films Belle de jour (1967), La chamade (1968), La sirène du Mississipi (1969), and Un flic (1972). Measurements: 33 1/2-24-35 (1965 - "My bust is small."), 34 1/2B-25 1/2-36 (in 1985) (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine). Marilyn Monroe is her favorite actress, and The Misfits (1961) is her favorite movie starring Marilyn. Is a grandmother. Her granddaughter is named Anna (b.2003) and her grandson is Milo (b.1997). Her role in La sirène du Mississipi (1969) was played by Angelina Jolie in Original Sin (2001), the American remake of the movie. Sang duets with Bernadette Lafont (1975), Gérard Depardieu (1980), Malcolm McLaren (1993), Joe Cocker (1995) and Alain Souchon (1997). In 1981, she released an album with songs of Serge Gainsbourg. 1988: Member of the international jury of the Shangaï Television festival. She had a relationship with François Truffaut in the 1970s. When the relationship failed, Truffaut had a nervous breakdown. Deneuve attended his funeral in 1984 and later appeared in 8 femmes (2002) with Fanny Ardant, who was Truffaut's partner at the time of his death and the mother of his youngest daughter. She and Marcello Mastroianni made five movies together: Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma (1995), Liza (1972), Touche pas à la femme blanche (1974), Ça n'arrive qu'aux autres (1971), and L'événement le plus important depuis que l'homme a marché sur la lune (1973). Ex-sister-in-law of Ruggero Mastroianni. Song "Catherine Deneuve and the Deus ex machina" is sung by band Kelly and the Kellygirls. As of the 5th edition of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (edited by Steven Jay Schneider), she ties, with Mae Marsh (most of whose performances amount to cameos), as the most represented actress with 7 films. Included are the Deneuve films Les parapluies de Cherbourg (1964), Repulsion (1965), Les demoiselles de Rochefort (1967), Belle de jour (1967), Tristana (1970), Le dernier métro (1980) and Dancer in the Dark (2000).