BEAUTY ICON OF THE WEEK: CATHERINE DENEUVE
Catherine Deneuve , born 22 October 1943) is a French actress. She gained recognition for her portrayal of aloof and mysterious beauties in films such as Repulsion (1965) and Belle de jour (1967).Deneuve was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1993 for her performance in Indochine; she also won César Awards for that film and The Last Metro (1980). Considered one of France's most successful actresses, she has also appeared in seven English-language films, most notably the 1983 cult classic The Hunger. In 2008, she appeared in her 100th film, Un conte de Noël.
Early life
Deneuve was born
Catherine Fabienne Dorléac in
occupied Paris, the third of four daughters, to French stage and screen actor
Maurice Dorléac and actress Renée Deneuve. Deneuve attended Catholic schools.Her three sisters are actress
Françoise Dorléac (who died in a car crash on 26 June 1967), Sylvie Dorléac and Danielle Dorléac.
Film career
Deneuve began acting as a teenager using her mother's surname as her elder sister,
Françoise Dorléac, was using their father's name. She made her film debut with a small role in
Les Collégiennes (1957) and subsequently appeared in films directed by
Roger Vadim, such as
Vice and Virtue (1963). The film that brought her stardom was
Jacques Demy's 1964 musical
Les Parapluies de Cherbourg. She made two more films with Demy , most notably another musical,
Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (1967), with Dorléac – who was killed in a car accident the following year – as her twin sister. Further prominent films from this early time in her career included
Roman Polanski's
Repulsion (1965),
Jean-Paul Rappeneau's
La Vie de château (1966), which employed her 'underused comic skills', and
Luis Buñuel's
Belle de Jour (1967), – as the ' haut-bourgeois housewife who achieves sexual satisfaction working in a Parisian
brothel.'In the Polanski film, Deneuve first portrayed the character archetype for which she would be nicknamed the "ice maiden", playing a beautiful Belgian girl, an emotionally distant and mysterious woman 'going homicidally insane in
Kensington.' Her work for Buñuel would be her most famous,and her screen persona as "a cold, remote erotic object which dreams are made on" reached a peak, according to the critic
Philip French, in her second Buñuel film
Tristana, (1970).Deneuve remained active in European films throughout the 1960s and 70s, but limited her appearances in American movies of the period to
The April Fools (1969) and
Hustle (1975). She co-starred with a young
Jodie Foster in
Casotto (1977).
In the 1980s, Deneuve's most notable films were
François Truffaut's
Le Dernier métro (1980), which garnered her the César Award for Best Actress, and
Tony Scott's cult classic
The Hunger (1983), her third American film in which she starred as a bisexual vampire, co-starring with
David Bowie and
Susan Sarandon. Deneuve's sex scene with Sarandon in
The Hungerbrought her a significant lesbian following.
Deneuve's fourth and most recent American film was
The Musketeer (2001). She shared the Silver Bear Award for
Best Ensemble Cast at the
Berlin International Film Festival for her performance in
8 Women (2002). In 2005, Deneuve published her diary
A l'ombre de moi-meme ("In My Own Shadow", published in English as
Close Up and Personal: The Private Diaries of Catherine Deneuve); in it she writes about her experiences shooting the films
Indochine and
Dancer in the Dark; and working with leading men such as
Burt Reynolds,
Jack Lemmon,
Vincent Perez,
William Hurt, and
Marcello Mastroianni. In 2006, she headed the jury at the
Venice Film Festival FX TV series
Nip/Tuck during its fourth season in November 2006. She also lent her voice to the Oscar-nominated animated feature
Persepolis (2007). In 2008, she appeared in her 100th film,
Un conte de Noël, which co-starred her daughter
Chiara Mastroianni. That same year she was honored at the
2008 Cannes Film Festival for her work.
Deneuve continues to work steadily making at least two or three films per year.
Career outside of film
Modeling
One of the world's great beauties, her image was used to represent
MarianneChanel No. 5 in the late 1970s and she caused sales of the perfume to soar in the United States – so much so that the American press, captivated by her charm, nominated her as the world's most elegant woman.
In 1983, American Home Products retained her to represent their cosmetics line. The company hired world-renowned photographer
Richard Avedon and Catherine Deneuve to promote its line of
Youth Garde cosmetics in which she famously proclaimed "Look closely. Next year I will be 40."
In 2001, she was chosen as the new face of
L'Oréal Paris. In 2006, Deneuve became the third inspiration for the M•A•C Beauty Icon series. Deneuve and
make-up artists collaborated on the colour collection that became available at M•A•C locations worldwide in February 2006. Deneuve began appearing in the new
Louis Vuitton luggage advertisements in 2007.
Entrepreneurial
Deneuve introduced her own perfume, Deneuve, in 1986. She is also a designer of glasses, shoes, jewelry and greeting cards.
Political involvement
- In 1972, Deneuve signed the Manifesto of the 343 (Manifeste des 343 salopes, Manifest of the 343 bitches). The manifesto was an admission by its signers to have practiced illegal abortions, and therefore, exposed themselves to judicial actions and prison sentences.It was published in Le Nouvel Observateur on 5 April 1971. That same year, feminist lawyer Gisèle Halimi founded the group, Choisir (“To Choose”), to protect the women who had signed the Manifesto of the 343.
- In 2001, Deneuve delivered a petition organized by the French-based group, "Together Against the death penalty," to the U.S. Embassy in Paris.
- In April 2007, Deneuve signed a petition on the internet protesting the "misogynous" treatment of socialist presidential candidate Ségolène Royal. More than 8,000 French men and women signed the petition, including French actress Jeanne Moreau.
Personal life
Deneuve speaks fluent French, Italian, English and is semi-fluent in German.Her hobbies and passions include gardening, drawing, photography, reading, music, cinema, fashion, antiques and decoration.
Deneuve was married to photographer
David Bailey from 1965 to 1972. They divorced but remain friends, and she has since said "Marriage is an obsolete trap."
Deneuve has four grandchildren: Christian's son Igor and daughter Lou, and Chiara's son Milo and daughter Anna.
Trivia.
An archetype for Gallic beauty, she succeeded
Brigitte Bardot as the model for Marianne, the symbol of the French Republic seen on French coins and stamps.
Has never performed in the theatre due to stage fright.
She speaks fluent Italian and French, as well as semi-fluent English and German.
Designer of glasses, shoes, jewelry, and greetings cards.
Her performance as Séverine Sérizy in
Belle de Jour (1967) is ranked #59 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).
She had a relationship with
François Truffaut in the 1970s. When the relationship failed, Truffaut had a nervous breakdown. Deneuve attended his funeral in 1984 and later appeared in
8 Women (2002) with
Fanny Ardant, who was Truffaut's partner at the time of his death and the mother of his youngest daughter.
Is a grandmother. Her grandsons are Igor (b. 1988) and Milo (b. 1996), and her granddaughters are Anna (b. 2003) and Lou (b. 2010).
Was in talks to star in a possible big screen adaptation of Anna Karenina that was in development during the early to mid 1980s. However, she lost interest when the project was scaled down to a made-for-TV movie. English actress
Jacqueline Bisset then took on the role and the result was
Anna Karenina (1985) (TV).
Personal Quotes
People who know me know I'm strong, but I'm vulnerable.
I'm lucky. I'm getting older with some directors who are getting older.
I don't see any reason for marriage when there is divorce.
To work is a noble art.
A star remains pinned on a wall in the public imagination.
But being a film actor is very different from, say, a theater actor. You get involved with a character after spending a long time waiting, and this demands a lot of energy and concentration. So I am very involved with the character, but I have to leave it as soon as it's finished. And also, you always have to be at the right level when it's time to shoot, which is not always the best time for the actor. Sometimes, if you're shooting a complicated scene, you have to stay in a position and wait for the technician to do his job, and then you have to be where you're supposed to be, right on the spot. You don't rehearse all that much on films. If I think of the amount of time I spend on set compared with the time spent shooting, it's ridiculously short.
But that's what I like about film - it can be bizarre, classic, normal, romantic. Cinema is to me the most versatile thing.
Directors have to push me because I never start [high] and then need to be pushed down; I have to be pushed up. Not all the time, but often.
I find sometimes that it's more difficult to do very simple, low-key films, like I've done with
André Téchiné. Sometimes, at the end of a shoot with him, I feel very down, like I'm leaving something because these are low-key but novel characters. But when you do films like
Repulsion(1965) or musicals, where you have to play someone so far away from yourself, what I do is I come in the morning and get involved in the character, but I'm always very pleased to leave it at night and have my life. No, I don't live that much with the character. I find it hard enough having to spend so many hours with the character during the day. Because you don't act all the time and you spend a long time waiting, but you still have to support this character all day long.
[on her looks] I know that if I didn't look the way I looked, I would never have started in films. That, I remember, and I know I have to accept it.
I like to be directed, it's true. If I didn't like that, I'd do something else. Being an actor means being an instrument for someone else.
I'm not always the nicest person to meet, because I forget very easily that I'm an actress when I'm not working. I live very normally, I go out with my friends, we go to the movies, I queue, we go to restaurants. Then if something happens to remind me that I'm an actress then I become a little different and things become a little heavy. I like the advantages; I know it's not right but I like being famous when it's convenient for me and completely anonymous when it's not.
Interestingly, people who have come to visit me on set - which I don't like - they're very surprised and say that I'm not the person they know. I'm not available to them, I cannot go off with them, I cannot get involved in their conversations, so they get the impression that they're seeing someone else. I tell them, yes, I do love to see them after a shoot, but during the shoot, I am with the people I work with. They ask, how can I stand being on a set waiting for so long, and that it must be so boring. And I have to explain that to wait, for an actor, is not at all like someone who's waiting to see the doctor. It's not the kind of wait where you get bored. Even if I try to think about something else while I'm waiting, I am living with the film, with the scene. But I do often feel tired during the day, and I'm lucky because I can go to sleep very easily, for even 10 to 15 minutes, even if I'm in costume or under a wig, so I do.
Interviews are written by someone else - the journalist makes the decision to add or take things away and I couldn't recognize my voice, or anything of myself in that.
What I don't like is close-ups, unless the actor is in the camera with me. I have to feel his presence. If I have to feel the presence of the camera before my partner's, it's very difficult. I love to do very long and complicated scenes. I like to have this impression that we are all working together, where you can see all the technicians and everybody is really doing the same thing at the same time. With close-ups, of course you have the crew there, but most of them are just around and it doesn't involve that many people.
[on
Gene Kelly] It was mostly an aura about him. For me he was Hollywood. The way I'd imagined it as a child.
[on
Jean-Louis Trintignant] I adore working with him. He's so generous, he doesn't play only for himself, but for his partner. He's also concerned with everyone on a set. That's why the technicians have great respect and tenderness for him.
I find cinema still very interesting. For me, to see a film, and to see a film and to be shown a story with actors that I like or actors that I don't know, it's always a discovery. I'm a great fan of films and I still go to see films in theaters. Even when I'm working, I try to see films. It's a desire, and it's something very important in my life. It's still something that I'm looking for, you know? It's like listening to music - it's part of my life. (2008)
My relationship to character is made up of mental things that you should not put words to. To do so would be immodest. The most decisive moment of my work around a character happens as we are shooting. That moment is so tense, so exhausting that once it is over, I need fire doors between the set and me. Back in my dressing room or in the hotel, I shut myself off, because the state I am in on set is too exhausting.
When we are filming, I can concentrate very quickly, but it does tire me out. It throws me into such a state! A trance-like state. So, what I need is either a trick for a calm type of trance or a sleepwalking trick.
I am incapable of working by myself without a director, without someone to coach me. But that doesn't tally at all with my idea of what a film character should be. I have to soak in what will happen on set, that day, the location, the light... I need to know what happens before in the story. To me that is the most important thing: to relate to a character in relation to where we are in the film. Maybe it also has to do with the fact that I have never done any real character parts. Even with Tristana, which required a bit of character acting. But Buñuel and I would talk off set, we had dinner together. The same is true of André Téchiné. We meet up but we always wind up talking about something else. And even though we have ended up talking about something unrelated, something useful has still come out of it. We have a conversation about something else but at the same time we are aware of what surrounds us, why we are here-the questions are very present in our head. But it is never straightforward. No, it is never straightforward.
(about Michael Mann) I watched Miami Vice again. I hadn't really liked it the first time round. But even so, it's a whole other way of filming, it's fascinating. There is a force, an incredible energy to it. His films are very long, but there are no gratuitous shots. When he decides to film the nape of an actor's neck, there is a real tension. It's there, it's not at all . . . an effect. It's surprising. He makes you feel the weight of things.
I was supposed to make a film with Hitchcock. It was set up North too, just like the Torn Curtain. It was going to be a spy story. At the time it was still only a synopsis. I had lunch with him in Paris and he died some months later. I would have loved to work with him.
I do prefer to start without any intention at all, rather than arrive with my own idea. I am incapable of deciding what a character is. At the same time, from the moment I have accepted the part and read the script, I know that things will circle in my mind. It won't happen all the time but nor will it ever stop entirely. But I am not obsessed, I don't have any trouble getting out of character, at night. I am always happy when filming and I am always happy to leave at night - it's true that there is always a kind of a nervous fatigue. Which I know is hidden away somewhere during the shoot. There are some things that fall into place without me doing anything. I know that now.
I am shocked when people talk about me and sum me up as: blond, cold, and solemn. People will cling on to whatever reinforces their own assumptions about a person.
Hollywood was already changing when I went there in 1968. I love American directors. I would love to work for
Francis Ford Coppola or
Martin Scorsese. But they don't need European actresses.
Why should I go to the States to do a film I wouldn't consider in Europe, just because it's English-speaking?
Mykie's Note:
Catherine Deneuve is one of the world most beautiful women in the world, still stunning today and making amazing films back to back. Her name alone is Iconic. As a makeup artist there is so much that I find in her beauty and films that i can use in my own work, not to copy but to help me find my own muse. The Hunger? need i say more, That film alone along with co star David Bowie, was enough to send me into a fashion frenzy, I saw that at such a young age, still in junior high school and my mom took to to the Del amo Mann Theater to see it. I sat there glued to my seat, i didn't know what to do with what I was feeling. From the opening scene, Bela Leguoi's Dead, ,undead , undead.... i was hooked. I watch the film twice a year to this day and can pull images to mind at will for inspiration for my work. She is an ageless beauty and a star that will shine with a legacy of roles and images that she will leave behind.
So as usual here is a selected film selection of my favorite films. If you have a change to see any of them, please feel free to let me know what you think. happy movie seeing.
mykie xoxo
MYKIE'S FILM SELECTION:
1964- The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg
1965- Repulsion
1967- Young Girls Of Rochefort
1967- Manon 70
1969- The April Fools
Mississippi Mermaid
1970- Trisana
1973- A Slightly Pregnent Man
1980- The Last Metro
1983- The Hunger
1986- Scene Of The Crime
1992- Indochine
1999- Time Regained
East/West
2000- Dancer In The Dark
2002- 8 Women
2008- A Christmas Tale
2010- Potiche
