Catherine Deneuve

I love The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

Absolutely LOVE her.

Some favorites: Belle de Jour, Repulsion, all 3 Jacques Demy films she starred in, Tristana, The Last Metro, The Hunger, 8 Women, Potiche, Indochine, etc

And a special shout-out for her iconic Chanel ads from the 70’s.

I chose my face over my fanny.

This woman was quite possibly the most beautiful woman in History, at least when she was young and in her prime...

"A Matter of Resistance" (1966) is one of her most charming comic performances and in stark contrast to "Repulsion", made the previous year.

She also was in a couple of good films by Andre Techine.

She was in the prime of her beauty for decades. She just continued to bloom. And she's still extremely beautiful today. So elegant. So enigmatic. Her interviews reveal a woman with intelligence and depth, a wonderful grasp of language and a way with words. Her choice of projects are varied, intense, sometimes off-the-wall but that's all part of her charm. She strikes me as a person who doesn't take herself too seriously and likes to have fun. She's great.

Her beauty is over rated.

Great British interview with C.D.

I’ve got a Belle de Jour poster in my living room sandwiched between a poster of Vanessa Redgrave in Blow-Up and a poster of Isabelle Adjani in The Story of Adele H.

Gorgeous lady. I do prefer her performances as an older woman than I do the most famous ones of her youth.

She ruined her beauty with plastic surgery and procedures. She also got heavier as she aged.

It was such a shame she didn't hook up with Hitchcock. She was his ideal Hitchcock Blonde.

R13 she would have been great as Marnie

R13 I get the feeling somehow that she wouldn't have been sufficiently deferential to him. I could be wrong

Considering what Buñuel asked her to do in Belle de Jour, I think she’d have been fine getting direction from Hitchcock

[quote]She ruined her beauty with plastic surgery and procedures.

Yeah, she's got that Joker upturned-smile thing going on now. She could look worse, though.

I must confess that I’ve never been a huge admirer. I want to like her, but something puts me off. Except, oddly enough, I absolutely love her in “The Hunger”, of all things. Go figure.

I did not like Heath Ledger in his role as “Joker”.

She really has no American equivalent in terms of her filmography.

It’s true that The Hunger is an exercise in style over substance …. But what style!

The scene where Catherine puts Bowie to “rest” in his coffin among all her dead lovers is surprisingly and oddly touching.

As she got older and started gaining weight, one interviewer rudely asked her if she was going to go on a diet. She answered that Coco Chanel said aging women have to pick between their face and their ass and she chose her face.

A gorgeous woman who had fantastic taste in picking projects. She never took something where she made a complete fool of herself.

I'm also a big fan, however, I'm not heard much about her since her stroke. I saw her in [italic]Elle s'en Va[/italic] recently (though it's nearly a decade old now) and she was so captivating at 70 years old.

I hope she quit smoking after the stroke, as hard as it is. At least vape instead.

One of a handful of truly beautiful women. Just stunning.

Ms. Deneuve's Charlie Rose interview

Craig Ferguson brought out a playful Deneuve.

Her mother actress Renee Simonot died last year just short of 110 years old.

She and her sister were so great in the Young Girls of Rochefort.

Dorleac was a marvelous comic actress. Such a tragedy she died so young.

I don't particularly care for her looks or acting. She is ok. Not my type, I guess. Same with Charlotte Rampling.

She is very elegant

She is one of the last quintessential movie stars left. She has always had the "it" factor in spades. Elegant, sophisticated, cerebral, dramatic, stunning. I agree with the above poster that she would have been THE ultimate Hitchcock blonde.

Was this written by a DLer?

Julie Christie was better

I like how she bitched that the #MeToo movement infringed on a women's right to be seduced.

I think she’s very good but like Isabelle huppert they’ve been in so many films that there’s an awful lot that aren’t very good.

My favorite film of hers is Truffaut's The Last Metro - the only film I've ever been able to stand Depardieu in.

One of the most beautiful actresses in her prime

Her daughter with Mastroianni, actress Chiara, looks uncannily like daddy.

I have a beautiful framed print of her holding a little dog hanging in my shop. I recently found out the dog was her sister’s beloved pup Jaderane who died with her in the car crash. Breaks my heart looking at it.

Neither of her kids are exceptionally good looking. Her son with Vadim is unattractive and her daughter is OK but nothing special. Mastroianni's looks work for a man but not for a woman.

Unsurprising considering Vadim looked like a velociraptor. Jane Fonda's daughter with him also not a stunner.

I LOVE her

Happy to see her being appreciated. I wish more French female icons would be appreciated here. Catherine Deneuve, Edith Piaf, Dalida, Isabelle Huppert, Sylvie Vartan, etc. Out of the realm of most English speaking cultures consciousness

This thread has made me realize I know absolutely NOTHING about her personal life. I assume that stuff if well-known in France. She was with Vadim and Mastroianni? I literally had no idea. I love piles of her movies but have just kept her as this soley mysterious on-screen figure.

That said I did see her at a screening about ten years ago for a Q&A here in New York, I don't even remember what movie it was, but when she entered the room and walked down the stairs I felt like I'd floated off my seat. I've been in rooms with lots of movie stars but she really is just a legend beyond what I could've imagined. She also had a very small body and an ENORMOUS head but then that's the case with so many stars

I thought her movie pairing with Alain delon would be off the charts. It was surprisingly lacklustre. It surprised me as individually I find them both so iconic but together there was just no chemistry. Or it may just have been that the film was just not very good. Either way I feel they should have been dynamite together.

Has Truffaut ever made anything legit sexy though? He's too intellectual (and ineffectual)

The only reason to ever watched Belle De Jour is Jean Sorel.

R50 he sure was beautiful in that movie.

Deneuve is as old as Dame Edith Evans.

The Woman Next Door is legit sexy. Good twisted movie.

[quote] Deneuve is as old as Dame Edith Evans.

?

Deneuve was married only once.

At 21, in London to David Bailey (27) the photographer in August 1965.

“I can’t explain what came over me when I married photographer David Bailey in London in 1965, explained Catherine Deneuve, in Illustrated Evening, 10 years later. I did not take long, it is true, to ask for a divorce. But this marriage, why? It was not a ‘gag’, as I have heard it said: I had consented to it and, therefore, thought it through well, first of all. It was, perhaps, only a momentum, an impulse or something else that I do not know…”

David Hemmings (Blow up) drove the Bentley(?) and Mick Jagger was David Bailey's witness.

And she married in a little black dress.

Bailey said his first impression of Deneuve was: “Short, bit on the fat side.”

^ Sounds like that they're both bitter.

I read a fascinating biography on Deneuve by a respected and trusted author (whose name escapes me just now). Deneuve is apparently more calculating than people realise - she regularly accepted large amounts of money for appearances, including from an Algerian businessman convicted of fraud - and has worked harder on her career than she ever has on her relationships.

Her father was an embarrassment as he was a Nazi sympathiser. Deneuve herself is obviously much more Liberal.

She remained friends with Bailey after their separation - they talk to this day. The primary reason for their divorce was the language barrier: she was too tired to speak English all the time, and Bailey couldn't be bothered to speak French!

[quote] Deneuve is apparently more calculating than people realise

So her breathy tiny voice is a ploy to make us assume she's a dumb bimbo.

To be fair, I don't believe any of the big-league stars are pushovers. You don't get to the top - and stay there - if you're weak or very sensitive.

R27

Thanks. I'll watch it later. Charlie Rose is incapable of correctly pronouncing any foreign names or words. It's ridiculous.

R50

Jean Sorel's role is tiny. The man with the meaty role is Pierre Clémenti. He's scary but arresting.

What's the difference between Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac?

R64

She was Deneuve's older sister. She died in a car crash at the age of 25, not long after she finished filming Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (The Young Girls of Rochefort) with Deneuve.

R64 They both appeared in Polanski movies?

Dorléac had a twisted pointy noise.

The Dorléacs had nothing to with the celebrated 'Orlac' classic.

[quote] Deneuve is apparently more calculating than people realise

Well, all the Deneuve performances I've seen were playing characters who were essentially passive and who needed a man to complete them.

Deneuve was great, evil and calculating in Truffaut's The Mississippi Mermaid driving Belmondo crazy.

It must have been awkward when they dumped her as "Marianne".

I thought that stroke was going to be the end of her, but she's still making appearances and looking great with a cigarette in hand.

I guess she has longevity in her genes. Her mom just passed away last year at 110.

[quote] So her breathy tiny voice is a ploy to make us assume she's a dumb bimbo.

Her voice is neither breathy nor tiny. You stupid fuck.

Thanks to R9 I found her 2002 interview with Charlie Rose. She handled him so well. I have never been a Charlie Rose fan though I watched him all the time because he got the great guests. It was so clear he was trying to break into her private space - even though that's what interviewers do, seeing him do it gave me the creeps.

She, however, was smart and delightful in that interview. She knows who she is and she's unafraid to assert it.

To the poster above re: Françoise Dorléac - that is the family name and Francoise was the bigger star, probably cause she started first, and she was adored not just by Catherine but by others.

Catherine out and about with star friends - she looks good!

Deneuve was with Marcello Mastroianni for 4 years in the '70s (1970-74), after his breakup with Faye Dunaway (1968-70). Marcello had said that Faye was the woman he loved the most, but she bailed on him when he refused to divorce his wife Flora Carabella and marry her. Flora stayed married to him until his death, despite not being the woman he loved the most.

8 Femmes

[quote] Faye was the woman he loved the most

Wow, find it hard to believe she was easier to live with than deneuve.

[quote] Flora stayed married to him until his death, despite not being the woman he loved the most.

This is the lie men tell and women need to believe. He didn't love his wife at all. She was just the convenient and safe one. The one that willingly tolerated him cheating. That type of tolerance on the wife's part isn't love either. More like obsession or the refusal to let a good ticket go.

I never understood the fascination with her.

Monica Bellucci, Sophia Loren, Marilyn Monroe were more beautiful and less boring than CD.

She was gorgeous for a very long time. Now at last she looks like the Joker.

[quote] boring than CD.

She is 'cool' in the French style, R79.

Hitchcock would have loved her COLDNESS.

I love her vibe. When she is being interviewed, she is friendly but so above it all. When asked about aging, she said she didn’t like it but that it wasn’t a problem. She’s a cool grande dame.

[quote] so above it all.

Cold and condescending; some heterosexual men like that kind of thing.

Hitchcock would have given his eye teeth to have the ability to strap Miss Deneuve to an ant's nest and watch her squirm.

Was she Catholic?

I recently saw the film she made whilst she had a stroke. Luckily for her it was being filmed at a real hospital.

The film was shot in chronically order and in the second half she barely had any dialogue and was sitting down as opposed to the first half of the film where she was moving around. She played 'the mother' role in the film which is about a drying middle aged man. After she had the 'mild stroke' as the media were told, filming was in fact shutdown for a number of months.

It does appear in recent times she has made much progress but she won't live as long as her mother. That diet of cigarettes, booze and French Fries will do everyone in.

I think she was the most beautiful actress of all time, from an early age to very recently. She has had plastic surgery for years, but up to a few years ago it was very subtly done.

Besides her beauty, elegance and inteligence, i was always surprised by her choice of roles. She has done a lot of independent, non mainstream movies (inevitably some clunkers).

My favourite role of hers is in André Techiné Ma Saison Preferré.

I like Catherine Deneuve but I adored Jeanne Moreau. She was mesmerizing in Ascenseur pour l'échafaud.

Catherine Deneuve was like a double serve of Vanilla Cake with 2 dollops of vanilla ice cream accompanied by a vanilla milk shake.

Would she have been as big if Francoise had not expired so suddenly and violently?

I have a small affection for Francoise Dorléac because she appeared in this interestingly-bad blockbuster.

Dorléac in "That Man from Rio," a James Bond spoof that was more fun than most Bonds.

She did have a pointy nose.

Miss Deneuve reads mean tweets [italic]en français[/italic]

She's one of those actresses, like Audrey Hepburn, that gay men and straight women find so appealing, yet straight men don't really care for.

Deneuve does have a cold vibe, r95, but unlike Hepburn she has been curvy since her forties, at least, not a malnourished skeleton.

R85: straight men of her generation and younger love her as well.

R97 I think you were referring to R95 not R85.

R75 Mastroianni eventually separated from Flora and he was with Maria Tato from 1976 until his death in 1996

She was Oscar nominated for Indochine, an amazing epic.

Aside from REPULSION, when I’ve seen Deneuve she’s seemed so cooly indifferent (very French!) it makes me feel like giving my attention to someone else.

It’s like, “Well, you don’t even seem to want to be here, so I may as well go give my time to a performer who puts in some effort. You go brush your hair or do whatever it is you want to do, on your own.”

I liked her on her episode of Nip/Tuck.

[quote]R47 I know absolutely NOTHING about her personal life. She was with Vadim and Mastroianni?

Yes. Mastroianni had an affair with Faye Dunaway and she said she wanted to give him a baby, “but he gave it to Deneuve.”

This was one of the great sorrows in our little Faye’s life.

Because Mastroianni's and Deneuve's careers were red hot and they were constantly on location on film shoots, Flora Carabella offered to adopt their daughter, Chiara. Deneuve refused. Chiara and Marcello and Flora's daughter, Barbara, ended up as best friends and Chiara was at Barbara's bedside when she died of cancer.

Dorléac was a great comic actress. Deneuve for all her qualities, was never funny.

Reminds me both Les parapluies de Cherbourg and Les demoiselles d'Avignon are on TCM this week.

^ Les Demoiselles de Rochefort?

I love the story about her refusing to say whether she had had plastic surgery because she knew that whatever she answered would make some women feel bad about themselves.

Deneuve can be dryly witty and even did physical comedy, all in her cool French way.

R105 oui