Catherine Deneuve

Catherine Deneuve was born in Paris on 22 October 1943 [1] [2], which makes her {age} years old, and she is still working: two films she appears in were shown at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2026 [13], and a third reaches French cinemas on 25 November 2026 [15]. A career that began when she was 13 [2] now spans more than six decades.

Family and the name Deneuve

She was born Catherine Dorléac, the daughter of the film actors Maurice Dorléac and Renée Simonot [2]. Another reference work gives her mother's name as Renée Deneuve [3], and the Cinema Scholars profile says Deneuve was her mother's maiden name [2]. Her elder sister Françoise Dorléac was born in 1942, and a younger sister, Sylvie, followed in 1946 [2].

Catherine made her screen debut in 1957 in Les Collégiennes, at 13 [2]. In 1960 she took her mother's maiden name to set herself apart from her sister [2].

The break: Cherbourg, Repulsion and Belle de jour

The turning point came in 1964, when she played Geneviève in Jacques Demy's sung-through musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, a film that made her a key figure of the French New Wave [5]. She told an audience in Lyon in 2016 that she met Demy when she was 20, and that working with young directors early on was a stroke of luck [8]. In the same interview she spoke of Roman Polanski's English-language debut, Repulsion, released in 1965 [8].

Two years later came Belle de jour, directed by Luis Buñuel, which won the Golden Lion at Venice in 1967 [5]. The Young Girls of Rochefort (1966), again with Demy, paired her with Françoise as twin sisters. It was the last film the two made together [2].

Françoise Dorléac died on 26 June 1967 at 25, when her rented car hit a signpost near Nice, flipped and caught fire [2]. Catherine withdrew from public life afterwards, and about 30 years passed before she spoke publicly about it. She later wrote a book about her sister with Patrick Modiano, Elle s'appelait Françoise [2].

Career timeline

• 1957: screen debut in Les Collégiennes [2].
• 1960: adopts the name Deneuve [2].
• 1964: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg [5].
• 1965: Repulsion with Roman Polanski [8].
• 1967: Belle de jour wins the Golden Lion in Venice [5].
• 1969: Mississippi Mermaid, shot with François Truffaut and Jean-Paul Belmondo [8].
• 1970: Donkey Skin [1].
• 1980: The Last Metro with Truffaut, which brought a César [5] [4].
• 1992: Indochine, an Oscar nomination and a second César [5] [4].
• 1998: Place Vendôme, Volpi Cup at Venice [4].
• 2000: Dancer in the Dark [1].
• 2002: 8 Women, directed by François Ozon [4].

Her relationship to Hollywood was brief. She made only two American films, which she described as "not smashing successes", and said nobody offered her interesting projects afterwards, so she went back to France [8]. She recalled that Robert Aldrich, who had a reputation for being difficult, treated her well on Hustle [8]. She also wrote to Lars von Trier to say she wanted to work with him, which led to Dancer in the Dark with Björk [8].

Of Truffaut she recalled that he produced everything himself, so he shot them in chronological order and sometimes wrote the dialogue the day before filming [8]. She said Belmondo disliked playing a passive role on Mississippi Mermaid. Truffaut believed life was more interesting than cinema, while she believed the opposite, but she admired his passion and his storytelling [8].

Asked in Lyon how she sees her own body of work, she said she does not think of herself as an auteur, and that she sees her filmography as a whole only at retrospectives. She said she is "more in front" of the camera than behind it [8].

Best-known films

Year	Title	Role or note
1957	Les Collégiennes	Screen debut, aged 13 [2]
1964	The Umbrellas of Cherbourg	Geneviève, directed by Jacques Demy [5]
1965	Repulsion	Directed by Roman Polanski [8]
1966	The Young Girls of Rochefort	Twin sister, opposite Françoise Dorléac [2]
1967	Belle de jour	Directed by Luis Buñuel, Golden Lion winner [5]
1969	Mississippi Mermaid	Directed by François Truffaut, with Jean-Paul Belmondo [8]
1980	The Last Metro	Directed by François Truffaut [5]
1992	Indochine	Oscar-nominated performance [5]
1998	Place Vendôme	Directed by Nicole Garcia [4]
2002	8 Women	Directed by François Ozon [4]
2026	Gentle Monster	Eryn, directed by Marie Kreutzer [13]
2026	Parallel Tales (Histoires parallèles)	A publisher, directed by Asghar Farhadi [14]

Awards and honours

Deneuve has two César awards for best actress, for The Last Metro (ceremony of 1981) and Indochine (1993) [4] [6]. The Associated Press counted 14 César nominations and one Oscar nomination, for Indochine [5].

At festivals the list is long. She received an honorary Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2005 [4]. At Venice she won the Volpi Cup for Place Vendôme in 1998 and the festival's honorary Golden Lion in 2022 [4] [5]. In Berlin, the cast of 8 Women, including Deneuve, took a Silver Bear for outstanding artistic contribution in 2002 [4]. The Lumière Prize, given in Lyon in October 2016, made her the first woman to win it [8]. She said she was moved and dedicated it to French farmers [7]. The European Film Academy announced a lifetime achievement award for her in 2013, for work in more than 100 films [10].

Relationships

Deneuve has been open about her work and guarded about her private life, and the reliable record is short. Encyclopedia.com lists the following [1]:

• David Bailey: the British photographer, married 1965, divorced 1972 (the same source notes that some references give 1970) [1].
• Roger Vadim: the director, with whom she had a son, Christian Vadim, born in 1963 [1]. A 2026 article quotes Deneuve on raising Christian, saying she was so demanding with him that she was sometimes discouraging [12].
• Marcello Mastroianni: the actor, with whom she had a daughter, Chiara Mastroianni, born in May 1972 [1]. Chiara hosted the opening ceremony of the 2023 Cannes festival, with her mother on the red carpet [9].
• Pierre Lescure: the French media executive. He said their relationship lasted nine years, from 1983 to 1991, and that they have stayed in touch daily since they separated [11].

No source we could verify names a current partner, so we do not name one.

What she is doing now

At Cannes in May 2026 Deneuve was in two films. In Marie Kreutzer's Gentle Monster, in competition at the 79th festival, she plays Eryn, a role whose details were not made public before the screening [13]. In Asghar Farhadi's Parallel Tales she appears in one sequence as a publisher opposite Isabelle Huppert [14]. Her third 2026 release is Forty Love, Pierre-Ange Carlotti's first feature, a tennis romance in which she has a supporting role. It opens in French cinemas on 25 November 2026 [15].

At Cannes in 2023 she opened the 76th festival on stage with Michael Douglas, and a 1968 image of her from La Chamade was used on the official poster [9].