The daughter of French stage and film actor Maurice Dorléac, Deneuve was born in Paris on October 22, 1943.

Born into a family of actors, she made her film debut as a teenager, and as she grew into a woman her cool blonde charms began to turn moviegoers' heads.

She made her screen debut at the age of 13, with a role in the 1956 film Les Collegiennes, and went on to make a string of films with directors such as Roger Vadim (with whom she had a child) before getting her breakthrough role in Jaques Demy's charming musical, Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) (1964).

In 1965 Catherine played a schizophrenic killer in director Roman Polanski’s first film, 'Repulsion' and, in 1967, starred in the controversial 'Belle de Jour', in which she memorably played a bored housewife who took up part-time work in an upper-class brothel.

In 2000 Catherine Deneuve recieved much critical attention when cast alongside eccentric Icelandic singer Bjork in the Lars von Trier's melancholy musical Dancer in the Dark. Though it polarized critics and audiences alike, Dancer nevertheless won the Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival

Deneuve also has a cult following for her portrayal of a vampire in The Hunger (1983, with Susan Sarandon) and the campy musical 8 Femmes (2002).