Françoise Dorléac: The Life and Legacy of Catherine Deneuve’s Late Sister
Discover the life and tragic story of Françoise Dorléac, the talented actress and sister of Catherine Deneuve who left a lasting mark on French cinema.
Françoise Dorléac was the first daughter of actors Maurice Dorléac and Renée Simonot. Two more daughters soon followed: Catherine and Sylvia. Her screen debut came in 1960, when she starred in Les loups dans la bergerie. In Les portes claquent (1960), she starred alongside her sister Catherine Deneuve, who, despite being younger, had already been working in cinema since 1957. She would go on to star in other films alongside her sister, such as The Hunt for Man (1964) and Two Romantic Girls (1967). She soon became a very promising actress and would appear in several films over the next few years.
The beauty worked with some of the greatest directors of her time, such as Roman Polanski, Michel Deville, René Clair, Jean-Pierre Marchand, François Truffaut and Jacques Demy. In 1964, she starred alongside Jean-Paul Belmondo in the crazy film L’Homme de Rio (1964), which was also filmed in Brazil, more precisely in Rio de Janeiro and Brasília, which had opened a few years earlier in 1960. In the same year, she played Nicole in Truffaut’s Una Soleil (1964).
Along with Omar Sharif, James Mason, Stephen Boyd and Eli Wallach, she made her American film debut in the now cult classic Genghis Khan (1965) and Where the Spies Are (1966) with David Niven. The Billion Dollar Brain (1967), directed by Ken Russell and starring Michael Caine, was her last film.
Everything seemed to indicate that she would embark on an international career, but fate intervened and the actress died after her car broke down and exploded on June 26, 1967. Her body was completely unrecognizable. She was only 25 years old. Her sister Catherine Deneuve would become one of the most sought-after actresses in France, still acting intensely to this day.
Check out the photo gallery we created in her honor:
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