Catherine Deneuve (born October 22, 1943) is a two-time Cesar Award-winning, BAFTA Award-nominated and Academy Award-nominated French actress. She became a major actress for her portrayal of beautiful ice maidens for various directors, including Luis Buñuel and Roman Polanski. Deneuve was born Catherine Fabienne Dorléac in Paris, as the third of four daughters to French stage and screen actor Maurice Dorléac and actress Renée Deneuve. Deneuve was 13 when she began her film career with a very small role in Les Collégiennes (1956), subsequently working in several films including under director Roger Vadim. The film that brought her to stardom was Jacques Demy's 1964 musical Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, which led to additional prominent roles in Roman Polanski's Repulsion (1965) and Luis Buñuel's Belle de Jour (1967). In the Polanski film, Deneuve first portrayed the character archetype for which she would be nicknamed the "ice maiden", an emotionally distant and mysterious woman; her work for Buñuel would be her most famous.[3][4] She also appeared in 1967 in Jacques Demy's musical Les Demoiselles de Rochefort, with her elder sister, Françoise Dorléac.
(corbis, wikipedia, Little Black Dress)
