She lived for the love of cinema… for love, period. On several occasions, the beautiful day counted fleurette but a man, only one, managed to make it take root. Two years after giving birth to her first child Christian, born of her relationship with director Roger Vadim in 1963, Catherine Deneuve fell under the spell of British photographer David Bailey. Their feelings were so crazy then that they decided to get married a few weeks after they met.
Catherine Deneuve is a mother of two children – she also had Chiara, in 1972, with Marcello Mastroianni. But the only man who has put the ring on his finger, in his life, is David Bailey. The lovebirds married in England in 1965 with, as witnesses, Mick Jagger himself, being a great friend of the artist, as well as Françoise Dorléac, the late sister of the actress. Refusing the convention of long immaculate white outfits, she then put on a little black dress before saying “yes” to her companion. But two years later, the divorce was pronounced to everyone’s surprise.
I did not take long, it is true, to ask for the divorce
“I can’t explain what came over me when I married photographer David Bailey in London in 1965.explained Catherine Deneuve, in Illustrated Evening, 10 years later. I did not take long, it is true, to ask for a divorce. But this marriage, why? It was not a ‘gag’, as I have heard it said: I had consented to it and, therefore, thought it through well, first of all. It was, perhaps, only a momentum, an impulse or something else that I do not know…”
Born in 1938, David Bailey is a big name in British photography. He has worked for the most prestigious fashion magazines, including the English version of vogue, and collaborated with members of the Rolling Stones group. Thanks to his sharp lens, he was made Order of the British Empire in 2001, and received the Medal of the Royal Photographic Society in 2005.