Renée Dorléac, actress and mother of Catherine Deneuve, dies at the age of 109 | World cinema

Renée Dorléac, the French film star and mother of actors including Catherine Deneuve, Françoise Dorléac and Sylvie Dorléac, died at the age of 109 in Paris, her family confirmed in Le Figaro.

Born in the port city of Le Havre on September 10, 1911, the actress – known professionally as Renée-Jeanne Simonot – began her career at the age of seven at the Théâtre de l’Odéon in Paris, where she worked for three decades.

Following the advent of talking cinema in 1929, she became one of the first French actresses to make a career in dubbing, becoming the French voice of stars including Olivia de Havilland, Judy Garland and Esther Williams.

While doubling for MGM, she meets actor Maurice Dorléac and they get married in 1940. They have three daughters: Françoise in 1942, Catherine in 1943 and Sylvie in 1946.

At the end of the Second World War, she left the acting profession to devote herself to the education of her daughters, including her eldest, Danielle, from a previous relationship. Françoise – who played with Catherine in Les Jeunes Filles de Rochefort as well as in Cul-de-Sac by Roman Polanski, died in 1967 in a car accident; Maurice died in 1979.

Catherine Deneuve, now 77, is one of France’s most prominent actresses and was at the Cannes film festival on Sunday – the day her mother died – to present her new film, Peaceful.

Deneuve, who chose her mother’s maiden name for her stage and screen name, said she was never more moved at the festival than at Sunday’s premiere, having been shaken by the coronavirus pandemic and by his own stroke in 2019.

Speaking a few months before his 102nd birthday in 2013, Dorléac told Le Point: “My old age is not sad. I am fortunate to be surrounded by many people. There isn’t a day that I don’t get a phone call or a visit from my children and grandchildren.