Catherine Deneuve: this terrible blackmail which forced Roger Vadim to cancel their marriage the day before the ceremony

It was her first great love story. A story that should have been sealed by a marriage. But at the last moment, Catherine Deneuve and Roger Vadim renounced their union, as the documentary tells Deneuve, Queen Catherine, broadcast this Thursday, April 14 on France 3. It was in the early 1960s that the young actress and the director met during a night at the Epic Club in Montparnasse. After being dumped by Brigitte Bardot, the latter married Danish actress Annette Stroyberg, with whom he has a little girl, Nathalie (born in June 1958). Despite his reputation as a libertine, Catherine Deneuve settled down with him overnight. She was 17 years old. Him 33. And everything seemed to work for them.

It was without counting this marriage project. This one had however started under the best auspices. Because it was in Tahiti that Roger Vadim had imagined marrying his beautiful. “The event owes as much to the pressure of the Dorléac parents as to the press, which constantly reminds the actress that her companion married her two previous conquests.“, however, specifies the voice-over of the documentary. Many years later, the actress who recently pushed the song on stage told Life Magazine : “Vadim and I were about to get married when the day before the ceremony – literally the day before – something happened in his family and the situation has changed. We didn’t get married“. What forced the situation to change is none other than… the ex-wife of Roger Vadim.

This blackmail exercised by the ex-wife of Roger Vadim

Annette Stroyberg has exercised a terrible blackmail on the director, threatening him to no longer entrust their daughter Nathalie to him, as the documentary reports. Roger Vadim therefore backtracked. “Catherine did not reproach me but I believe thatshe never forgave me this failed marriage“, he confided later. At the time, their couple did not seem to be tainted by this unexpected twist. In the summer of 1963, the two lovebirds even gave birth to their son, Christian. But barely six months after this happy birth, the couple separated. In question ? The infidelity of Roger Vadim whose intimate relationship he had with Jane Fonda made the rounds of the tabloid press. “It is true that the separation with the father of my son is a very difficult thing. In truth, I left. He left me or at least he had betrayed me, for me when it’s broken, it’s broken“, explained the one who was recently the victim of an ischemic vascular accident, who shortly after married the photographer David Bailey. But that is another story…

Loading-widget

Subscribe to the Closermag.fr Newsletter to receive the latest news for free