It’s been almost six decades since a 24-year-old Catherine Deneuve and her older sister Françoise Dorléac played twins in The Young Girls of Rochefort.
The film, also starring a young Gene Kelly, would be the last for the sisters, Deneuve gaining international prominence while Françoise’s life and career would be frozen in time.
Born into a family of actors, Deneuve, now 79, made her debut in the 1957 French film The Twilight Girls. It was in 1960 when she starred in the romantic musical, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, a role that emphasized her Gallic chic and purity, that she was launched into stardom. This was the first of many Jacques Demy films that Deneuve would appear.
Her dramatic potential captured the interest of the legendary director-producer, Roman Polanski, who cast her in a leading role in the psychological thriller, Repulsion. Her magnificent portrayal of Carol, a homicidal schizophrenic, earned Deneuve her a lifelong reputation as the “ice maiden,” which was cemented in her next role in Belle de Jour, an award-winning role where she played a bourgeoise housewife, also a hobbyist prostitute.
