Guest Author - Erin Caslavka

If the moniker “timeless elegance” could be attached to anyone currently working in the celluloid world, it would undoubtedly be used to describe French actress Catherine Deneuve. With her icy-cool looks, she’s been gracing the screen since her film debut at 13, and shows no signs of slowing down…

Born October 22, 1943, Deneuve was the third daughter of veteran actor Maurice Dorleac. When she fell into acting (her older sister was an actress as well), she took her mother’s maiden name and a future star was born.

Although Roger Vadim had a hand in her early career, it was through director Jacques Demy’s “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” (1964) that she truly became a household name – at least in her native France. The film won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival that year, and suddenly everyone wanted to learn more about the stunning blonde.

Deneuve has repeatedly referred to herself as shy, and perhaps that has translated onto the screen as being fragile, aloof, or distant. Yet these characteristics have worked well for her when transforming them into performances about characters living on the emotional edge. Undoubtedly it is because of her extreme beauty that audiences cannot quite grasp the depths to which her characters stoop, thereby turning expectations on their ear and making for more interesting cinematic voyages, such as in Roman Polanski’s “Repulsion,” (1965) in which Deneuve plays a Belgian manicurist who is both drawn to, and repulsed by, her feelings about sex, and in the classic “Belle de Jour” (1967) where she portrays a bored housewife who spices up her afternoons by working in a brothel.

Unlike many in the French cinema, Deneuve is not candid about her personal life, thereby contributing to her enigmatic presence off- as well as on-screen. However, in a recent article Deneuve did let down her guard somewhat when she discussed her feelings for actor Marcello Mastroianni: “He was someone who didn’t take himself seriously,” she said, “but had a great sense of humor and enormous imagination. He was really very inventive and a man who was young at heart.”

Interestingly, for someone who has made almost 100 films, Deneuve has expressed a fear at appearing onstage. It is, she’s said, due to stage fright – something that she has never been able to get over.

Although she was nominated for an Academy Award for her work in “Indochine,” the story of a plantation owner in the final days of French Indochina and her complicated relationship with her adopted daughter, it wasn’t until almost ten years later (2002) that she reemerged in another film that took audiences by storm in “8 Femmes,” a comic murder/mystery.

Always open to new roles and stories to be explored, Deneuve will undoubtedly continue bringing her extraordinary sense of style and willingness to explore emotional journeys to film. For as she’s said, “I’m an actress, and I want to go on making films with good directors and being involved in interesting projects.”