Françoise Dorléac

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Françoise Dorléac (March 21,1942 - June 26,1967), was a popular French actress.

She was the daughter of screen actor Maurice Dorléac and elder sister of the now better-known Catherine Deneuve. The two sisters starred together in the 1967 musical, Les Demoiselles de Rochefort.

She was made famous by Philippe de Broca's movie L'homme de Rio, François Truffaut's La peau douce and Roman Polański's Cul-de-Sac, but her career was cut short by her death in a car crash at the age of 25.

[edit] Tragic Death

Francoise Dorléac was killed when she crashed her car ten miles from Nice. She had been en route to Nice airport when her rented Renault R10 hit a signpost at the end of the Esterel-Cote d'Azur auto-route, flipped over, and burst into flames. Dorléac was seen struggling to get out of the car, but was unable to open the door. Police later identified her body only from the fragment of a cheque book, a diary and her driving licence.

Dorléac had intended to fly to Paris, then on to London to complete work on the film Billion-Dollar Brain. She was then to have stayed in Britain for the premiere of The Young Girls of Rochefort.