Today it's the 70th birthday of elegant Catherine Deneuve (1943). She is an icon of the French cinema who graces the screen for already more than five decades. She gained recognition in the 1960s for her portrayal of cool, mysterious beauties in classic films of directors like Luis Buñuel, Roman Polanski and François Truffaut. Apart from a great actress, she is also an archetype for Gallic beauty. From 1985 to 1989, she succeeded Brigitte Bardot as the model for the national symbol Marianne, seen on French coins and stamps. Joyeux anniversaire, Mme. Deneuve.
French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 378. Photo: Sam Lévin.
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2522, 1965. Retail price: 0,20 MDN. Photo: Sam Lévin.
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2533, 1966. Retail price: 0,20 MDN.
Elegant Catherine Deneuve (1943) is an icon of the French cinema. She gained recognition in the 1960’s for her portrayal of cool, mysterious beauties in classic films of directors like Luis Buñuel, Roman Polanski and François Truffaut. Apart from a great actress, she is also an archetype for Gallic beauty. From from 1985 to 1989, she succeeded Brigitte Bardot as the model for the national symbol Marianne, seen on French coins and stamps. Since then she had new successes with such directors as Lars von Trier and François Ozon.
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.
French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 378. Photo: Sam Lévin.
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2522, 1965. Retail price: 0,20 MDN. Photo: Sam Lévin.
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2533, 1966. Retail price: 0,20 MDN.
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Catherine Deneuve was born Catherine Fabienne Dorléac in 1943, in Paris, France. She was the third of four daughters to the stage actors Maurice Dorléac and Renée Deneuve (who was the French voice of Esther Williams, and whose name Catherine uses). Her sisters were actress Françoise Dorléac, Sylvie Dorléac and Danielle Dorléac. When Catherine was 13 she had the opportunity to play in Les Collégiennes/The Twilight Girls (1956, André Hunebelle) during the summer school holidays with her sister Sylvie, and she accepted because she was curious to see how a film was made. She was credited as Catherine Dorléac and just began using her mother's maiden name professionally in 1960, in order to differentiate herself from sister Françoise Dorléac, then an upcoming actress. Catherine continued with small parts in minor films, until she met film director Roger Vadim, the former husband of Brigitte Bardot. Stunning and only 17 years old, Deneuve and the 32-years-old Vadim began romancing. She dyed her naturally brown hair to blonde to please Vadim, who gave her a leading part in the Marquis de Sade adaptation Le vice et la vertu/Vice and Virtue (1963, Roger Vadim). Her breakthrough came the next year with the musical Les parapluies de Cherbourg/The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964, Jacques Demy) in which she gave an unforgettable performance as a romantic middle-class girl who falls in love with a young soldier (Nino Castelnuovo) but gets imprisoned in a loveless marriage with another man (Marc Michel). The film was nominated for five Academy Awards. Demy also cast Deneuve in the less successful Les demoiselles de Rochefort/The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967, Jacques Demy), with her elder sister Françoise Dorléac. That year Françoise would die in a fatal car crash on the French Riviera, only 25 years old. The sisters were extremely close and Deneuve was devastated.
German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/200. Photo: Gérard Decaux.
French postcard by Ministar, no. 998. Photo: Patrick de Mervellec.
French postcard by Ed. Corvisart, Epinal, no. 998. Photo Patrick de Mervellec.
Belle de jour
Catherine Deneuve had her English speaking film debut in Roman Polanski’s shocking psychological thriller Repulsion (1965, Roman Polanski). She delivered a creepy performance, as Carol, a sexually repressed, paranoid schizophrenic. Her descent into madness results with her murdering men who lust after her. Deneuve was again a sensation as a bored housewife who fulfills her sexual fantasies while working as an afternoon call girl in Luis Buñuel’s masterpiece Belle de jour/Beauty of the Day (1967, Luis Buñuel) with Jean Sorel and Michel Piccoli. James Travers at Films de France: "The casting of Catherine Deneuve as Séverine is a marvellous example of serendipity. At the time, she was in a relationship with the film director François Truffaut, who was so impressed with her acting skill that he lobbied Buñuel to give her a lead role in his next film. Buñuel was initially lukewarm towards Deneuve and insisted that she should not give a performance. Ever the professional, Deneuve obliged and delivered a non-performance par excellence that is perfectly suited for the film. It is the actress’s ice-cold aloofness and the tight grip she has on her emotions that makes her so perfect for the role of Séverine." She also worked with the Spanish director on Tristana (1970, Luis Buñuel), in which she again portrayed an innocent beauty exploited by a lecherous older man, this time played by Fernando Rey. Unlike in Belle de jour, her character in Tristana achieved independence and eventually exacted revenge on the man who exploited her. The film garnered an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. She gave another great performance in a dual role opposite Jean-Paul Belmondo in La sirène du Mississipi/Mississipi Mermaid (1969, François Truffaut), a kind of apotheosis of her ‘beautiful ice maiden’ persona. When their private relationship failed, Truffaut reportedly had a nervous breakdown.
Spanish postcard by Postal Oscarcolor, no. 111, 1964. Dep. Legal B 14.1618-1964.
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1083, presented by Corvisart, Epinal. Photo: Anders.
French postcard by Editions d'art Yvon, Paris, no. 40-110-07. Photo: Park Film / KIM. Publicity still for Peau d'âne/Donkey Skin (1970, Jacques Demy). Caption: 'La Princesse reçoit la peau d'âne' (The princess receives the donkey skin).
Chanel No. 5
Catherine Deneuve was the muse of fashion designer Yves Saint-Laurent, who dressed her for Belle de jour, La chamade/Heartbeat (1968, Alain Cavalier), La sirène du Mississipi, Un flic/A Cop (1972, Jean-Pierre Melville), Liza (1972, Marco Ferreri) and The Hunger (1983, Tony Scott). She was also the face of Chanel No. 5 in the 1970’s and caused sales of the perfume to soar. In the US, the press nominated her as the world's most elegant woman. She appeared then in two American movies, the comedy The April Fools (1969, Stuart Rosenberg) opposite Jack Lemmon, and the crime drama Hustle (1975, Robert Aldrich) with Burt Reynolds. However, she remained active in European films during the 1970's, although she didn't find parts of the same caliber as her roles of the 1960’s. Deneuve reunited with Jacques Demy for the fairytale Peau d'âne/Donkey Skin (1970, Jacques Demy) with Jean Marais, and made five films together with Marcello Mastroianni: Ça n'arrive qu'aux autres/It Only Happens to Others (1971, Nadine Trintignant), Liza (1972, Marco Ferreri), L'événement le plus important depuis que l'homme a marché sur la lune/A Slightly Pregnant Man (1973, Jacques Demy), Touche pas à la femme blanche/Don't Touch the White Woman! (1974, Marco Ferreri), and Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma/A Hundred and One Nights of Simon Cinema (1995, Agnès Varda). In 1989, she was back with a magnificent role in Le dernier métro/The Last Metro (1980, François Truffaut) as a stage actress in Nazi-occupied Paris. It was the first of six films in which she starred opposite Gérard Depardieu. For her performance she won a César Award, and the film, which won an Academy Awardfor Best Foreign Language Film, revived her international career. Deneuve played a bisexual vampire in the slick The Hunger (1983, Tony Scott), with David Bowie and Susan Sarandon. The role brought her a significant lesbian following. Her appearance in the romantic thriller, Le Lieu de crime/Scene of the Crime (1986, André Techiné), with Danielle Darrieux, was also well received.
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 568.
French postcard by Sofraneme, Levallois Perret, 1980.
French postcard by E.D.U.G., Paris, no. 506. Photo: Sam Lévin.
Dancer in the Dark
Catherine Deneuve has never performed in the theatre due to stage fright. However she is universally hailed as one of the ‘grandes dames’ of the French cinema, joining Michèle Morgan, Danielle Darrieux, Simone Signoret, Jeanne Moreau,Isabelle Huppert, and Juliette Binoche. During the 1990’s Deneuve continued to appear in a large number of films. She was very good opposite Vincent Perez in the epic drama Indochine/Indochina (1992, Regis Warnier) as a plantation owner in the 1930’s. For this role she earned her first Academy Award Nominaton and a second César Award. She starred in several films by André Téchiné, including Ma saison préférée/My Favorite Season (1993) and Les Voleurs/The Thieves (1995), with Daniel Auteuil. She joined the documentary L'Univers de Jacques Demy (1995, Agnès Varda), to show tribute to the director who made the film that brought her to fame. In 1998, she won acclaim and the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival for her performance as a jeweler s widow in Place Vendôme (1998, Nicole Garcia) and in 1999 she appeared in five films, Est-Ouest/East-West (1999, Régis Wargnier), Pola X (1999, Leos Carax), Belle-maman/Beautiful Mother (1999, Gabriel Aghion), and Le vent de la nuit/The Wind of the Night (1999, Philippe Garrel) and the wonderful Le temps retrouvé/Marcel Proust's Time Regained (1999, Raoul Ruiz) with Emmanuelle Béart and John Malkovich. The following year, she surprised everyone with her portrayal of the factory worker sidekick of Icelandic singer Bjork in the melancholy musical Dancer in the Dark (2000, Lars von Trier). She had seen Von Trier’s Breaking the Waves (1996) and was so impressed with the Danish director; that she wrote him a letter requesting a part in one of his upcoming projects. He obliged, and her performance provided further proof that she was much more than a pretty face, and had always been. Though it polarized critics and audiences alike, the film was selected for the Palme d'Orat the Cannes Film Festival.
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.
Vintage postcard, no. 2071.
French postcard by Editions F. Nugeron , no. 71. Photo: J. Ritchie.
8 Femmes
In 2002, Catherine Deneuve shared the Silver Bear Award for Best Ensemble Cast at the Berlin International Film Festival for her performance in the musical comedy 8 Femmes/8 Women (2002, François Ozon). It was another triumph. In 2005 she published her diary A l'ombre de moi-meme/Close Up and Personal: The Private Diaries of Catherine Deneuve, in which she writes about her experiences shooting the films Indochine, and Dancer in the Dark. At the unheard of age of 62, she signed a deal with Mac Cosmetics in 2006, and a year later, nabbed a contract modeling for Louis Vuitton. She voiced the mother in Persepolis (2007 Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi); an animated film based on Satrapi´s graphic novel of the same name. Her daughter Chiara Mastroianni voiced the anti-Disney heroine, a rebellious, teenaged Iranian girl who loves heavy metal. The edgy animated feature was nominated for an Academy Award. In 2008, Deneuve appeared in her 100th film, Un conte de Noël/A Christmas Tale (2008, Arnaud Desplechin). However, she continues to work steadily making at least two or three films per year. She reunited with director François Ozon for the hilarious comedy Potiche/Trophy Wife (2010) and was the Queen of England in the comic book adaptation Astérix et Obélix: Au service de Sa Majesté/Astérix and Obélix: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (2012, Laurent Tirard). In both films, she co-starred with Gérard Depardieu. Catherine Deneuve's only marriage was from 1965 to 1972 with British photographer David Bailey. The couple divorced in 1972 but remained friends. Deneuve has two children: actor Christian Vadim (1963), from her relationship with Roger Vadim, and Chiara Mastroianni (1972), from her relationship with Marcello Mastroianni. She is now the grandmother of Milo (1997) and Anna (2003) and resides in the luxurious neighbourhood of Saint Germain des Pres in Paris. More than 55 years after her debut, she continues to be one of the major stars of the European film. As Mark Deming writes at AllMovie in his review of Potiche: "They just don't make movie stars like Catherine Deneuve anymore. It's not just a matter of her beauty, though she's still a radiantly lovely woman at the age of 67 - Deneuve has the rare ability to seem perfectly naturalistic while firmly holding the screen with her presence, and she can effortlessly play both comedy and drama, sometimes moving back and forth between both in a single picture without ever seeming less than authentic." Next year, she can be seen in the cinema opposite Mylène Demongeot in Elle s'en va/She leaves (2013, Emmanuelle Bercot). We hope Deneuve herself will stay for many years to come.
Scenes from Les parapluies de Cherbourg/The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964). Source: Dyland33 (YouTube).
Trailer of Tristana (1970). Source: heroxmasox (YouTube).
Elegant brunette Fanny Ardant (1949) appeared in more than fifty films since 1976. Initially, her youthful beauty brought her popularity in two films by François Truffaut, but over time her sophistication and acting skills have made her one of France's most admired actresses. She was four times nominated for a César, the French Oscar, and won for Pédale douce (1997). Fluent in English, Spanish and Italian, Ardant has also starred in several international films.
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 43034.
Tragic Lovers Fanny Marguerite Judith Ardant was born in Saumur, France in 1949. Her father Jean Ardant was a military attaché. Fanny grew up in Monaco where her father worked as an adviser for the royal family. She subsequently spent much of her childhood moving around Europe. At 17, she moved to Aix-en-Provence to study political science at the Institut d'études politiques d'Aix-en-Provence. But she was more passionate about the theatre and took drama classes from Jean Périmony. In 1974 she made her first stage appearance in Polyeucte by Pierre Corneille. The play was directed by Dominique Leverd, who would be the father of her first daughter, Lumir. Roles in plays by Henry de Montherlant, Jean Racine and Jean Giraudoux followed. Her film debut was a small part in Marie-poupée/Marie, the Doll (1976, Joël Séria). For TV she played one of the leading roles in the prestigious mini-series Les Dames de la Côte/The ladies of the coast (1979, Nina Companéez) starring Edwige Feuillère. Legendary film director François Truffaut saw the series and noticed her. Truffaut was captivated by Ardant’s unconventional beauty - her dark eyes, her wide mouth, her triangular face and her deep voice. He invited her to a lunch with Gérard Depardieu, with whom he had just made Le Dernier metro/The Last Metro (1980, François Truffaut). Dépardieu and Ardant had earlier acted together in the film Les chiens/The Dogs (1979, Alain Jessua). Truffaut then cast Dépardieu and Ardant as tragic lovers in La Femme d'à côté/The Woman Next Door (1981, François Truffaut). Tom Wiener at AllMovie: “The Woman Next Door has a story line right out of a soap opera. Fortunately, it plays like variations of a half-dozen other intelligent Truffaut films on the vagaries of love. Depardieu and Ardant evince such potent chemistry that it's hard not to root for their characters, Bernard and Mathilde, even as you see them slide toward tragedy.” Her role became her international breakthrough and Ardant received her first César nomination for Best Actress in 1982. During the production of the film, the director and actress had fallen in love. Ardant became the last muse and partner of Truffaut. In 1983 she gave birth to their daughter, Joséphine.
French postcard by Humour a la Carte, Paris, no. 3713.
Devastated By the early 1980’s, Fanny Ardant had turned into a major European film star. Fluent in English, Spanish and Italian, she played serious, passionate roles in several international films. In Italy she worked with director André Delvaux at Benvenuta (1983) as a pianist unhappy in love with Vittorio Gassman, and with Ettore Scola at the award winning family drama La famiglia/The Family (1987). In France, she worked with Truffaut again at the comedy Vivement dimanche!/Confidentially Yours (1984, François Truffaut), a homage to the film noir, shot in black & white. She played a self-assured secretary who helps a murder suspect (Jean-Louis Trintignant) to prove his innocence. James Travers at Films de France: "Stylistically, Vivement dimanche! is an almost faultless pastiche of the classic film noir (laden with countless references to the films of Alfred Hitchock, Truffaut’s personal hero), but what most gives it its charm is a persistent vein of downbeat humour, which is so wonderfully incongruous with the theme and style of the film. The comic highpoint is the scene in which Fanny Ardant interviews a dumb blonde as her replacement - it has nothing to do with the plot but it is one of the funniest asides in Truffaut’s entire oeuvre." For her role she received her second César nomination. In 1984, Truffaut died from a cancerous brain tumour, and left Ardant devastated. However, her career flourished. She played several plum roles for major directors. For Volker Schlöndorf, she appeared in his Marcel Proust adaptation Un amour de Swann/Swan in Love (1984) opposite Jeremy Irons, for Alain Resnais in L’Amour à mort/Love Unto Death (1984) with Sabine Azéma, and in Mélo/Melodrama (1986), for Costa-Gavras in Le conseil de famille/Family Business (1986) with Johnny Hallyday, and later for Michelangelo Antonioni and Wim Wenders in Al di là delle nuvole/Beyond the Clouds (1995). Among her English language roles were Afraid of the Dark (1991, Mark Peploe) with James Fox, and Sabrina (1995, Sydney Pollack) with Harrison Ford. Over time, her sophistication and acting skills have made Ardant one of France's most admired and popular actresses.
Catherine Deneuve. Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 568.
Acidic Noblewoman In 1996, Fanny Ardant proved her versatility, playing a comedic role in Pédale douce/What a Drag (1996, Gabriel Aghion) for which she won the 1997 César Award for Best Actress. She spoofed her sophisticated screen image as the confidante of a gay businessman who agrees to pose as his wife to impress a banker and then finds herself romantically pursued by the banker. Another major success was her role as the acidic noblewoman Madame de Blayac at the court of Louis XVI in Ridicule (1996, Patrice Leconte). This historic film was also very popular with the public, won the César for Best Film and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Film. She was then directed by Roman Polanski as Maria Callas in Terrence McNally's play Master Class, at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin. For her portayal, Ardant was nominated for the Molière award as Best Stage Actress. She portrayed the opera diva again in the English-language film Callas Forever (2003, Franco Zeffirelli). A year earlier, she was nominated for another César for 8 Femmes/8 Women (2002, François Ozon), again a commercial and critical hit. In this whodunit she got to wrestle Catherine Deneuve. James Travers at Films de France: "Fanny Ardant is stunning (and worryingly convincing) in her role of a totally liberated lesbian prostitute – relishing her stereotypical rendition of the French pute whilst subtly exposing a tragic vulnerability. She is only narrowly eclipsed by Catherine Deneuve, whose portrayal of the self-centred bourgeois husband-cheater is the perfect caricature of the kind of roles which have earned Deneuve her name. Her over-the-top reactions to such revelations as her daughter’s pregnancy and her negro maid’s lesbianism - totally appropriate for the era in which the film is set – are the stuff of classic vaudeville." Other films were La cena/The diner (1998, Ettore Scola), Elizabeth (1998, Shekhar Kapur) featuring Cate Blanchett, Le libertine/The Libertine (2000, Gabriel Aghion) with Vincent Pérez, Paris, je t'aime (2006) containing 18 seemingly unrelated vignettes by 18 different directors about love in the city of lights, and Roman de gare/Crossed Tracks (2007, Claude Lelouch). In a 2007 interview, she expressed admiration for Renato Curcio, ex-leader of the militant Brigate Rosse (Red Brigades), saying that it was good of him to adhere to his principles. She later discovered that it would be difficult to attend a film festival in Venice, as her declaration had created a scandal in Italy. The Governor of Veneto declared that he preferred that Ardant would not visit his region. She pleaded for forgiveness from victims of terrorism, and the affair ended. Ardant became a director and screenwriter with the ambitious period melodrama Cendres et sang/Ashes and Blood (2009). She also directed the short film Chimères absentes/Chimeras lacking (2010). Her most recent feature film was Interno Giorno/Interior Day (2011), directed by Tommaso Rossellini, grandson of Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman. At the time of writing, she is filming Les beaux jours/The Beautiful Days (2012, Marion Vernoux). Fanny Ardant has three daughters: Lumir (1975) with Dominique Leverd, Joséphine (1983) with François Truffaut, and Baladine (1990) with cameraman Fabio Conversi.
Trailer for Vivement dimanche!/Confidentially Yours (1984). Source: UmbrellaEntAU (YouTube).
Trailer for Afraid of the Dark (1991). Source: CoolestMovies (YouTube).
French trailer for Cendres et sang/Ashes and Blood (2009). Source: Ardantgroup (YouTube).
