Catherine Deneuve Biography

Catherine Deneuve was born Catherine Dorleac, the third daughter to parents who were both actors.

She made her debut in 1957 as a teenager, and is now perceived as one of the "grandes dames" of French cinema.

Her break came in the 1963 film 'Les Parapluies de Cherbourg'. In this film, she played a romantic girl who fell in love with a soldier. However, when the soldier left her pregnant, she ended up trapped in a loveless marriage to someone else. The film won the Grand Prix at that year’s Cannes Film Festival.

The same year, Catherine had a son, Christian, with Roger Vadim, although the couple did not marry. However, two years later, in 1965, the actress married famous British photographer David Bailey.

In 1965 Catherine played a schizophrenic killer in director Roman Polanski’s first film, 'Repulsion' and, in 1967, starred in the controversial 'Belle de Jour', in which she memorably played a bored housewife who took up part-time work in an upper-class brothel.

Catherine Deneuve formed her own production company in 1971, called 'Les Films de la Citrouille'.

She divorced Bailey in 1972, when she gave birth to her daughter Chiara by Italian director, Marcello Mastroianni.

Throughout the 1980s, Catherine advertised Chanel perfumes on American TV, and this prompted her to launch her own signature fragrance.