Catherine Deneuve was born in 1943, in Paris, France. Her parents were actors. She made her movie debut in 1957, when she was a teenager and continued with small parts in minor films, until Roger Vadim gave her a meatier part in Le vice et la vertu (1963). But her breakthrough came with the excellent musical Les parapluies de Cherbourg (1964). Although the elegant and always radiant Deneuve has never appeared on stage, she is universally hailed as one of the "grandes dames" of French cinema, joining a list that includes such illustrious talents as Simone Signoret, Jeanne Moreau, Isabelle Huppert, and the younger Juliette Binoche.