Catherine Deneuve

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. She is the actress and the style icon, and one of the most beautiful women of our time. In October, 22, 2008 the famous actress celebrated her 65th birthday. In spite of her mature age she is as far as ever from the decision to stop her acting career.

Deneuve was 13 when she began her film career with a 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 Jacques Demy's musical Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (1967), with her elder sister, Françoise Dorléac.

Deneuve remained active in European films during the 1960s and the 1970s, though she limited her appearances in American movies of the period to The April Fools (1969) and Hustle (1975). Her starring roles at the time were featured in such films as Tristana (1970, again with Buñuel) and A Slightly Pregnant Man (1973, opposite Marcello Mastrioanni). In the 1980s, Deneuve's films included François Truffaut's Le Dernier métro (1980, which garnered her the César Award for Best Actress) and Tony Scott's The Hunger (1983, as a bisexual vampire, co-starring with David Bowie and Susan Sarandon, a role which brought her a significant lesbian following).[5] In the early 1990s, Deneuve's more significant roles included 1992's Indochine (which garnered her a second César Award for Best Actress, and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress); and André Téchiné's two movies, Ma saison préférée (1993) and Les Voleurs (1995). In 1994 she was Vice President on the jury of the Cannes Film Festival.[6] In 1996, Deneuve joined the documentary L'Univers de Jacques Demy, 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 in Place Vendôme. In the late 1990s Deneuve continued to appear in a large number of films such as 1999's five films, Est-Ouest, Le temps retrouvé, Pola X, Belle-maman, and Le vent de la nuit.

In 2000, Deneuve's part in Lars von Trier's musical drama Dancer in the Dark alongside Icelandic singer Björk was subject to considerable critical scrutiny. The film was selected for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2002, she shared the Silver Bear Award for Best Ensemble Cast at the Berlin International Film Festival for her performance in 8 Women. 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. In 2006, she headed the jury at the Venice Film Festival. Deneuve continues to work steadily making at least two or three films per year.

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Deneuve