Dorléac was Jean-Pierre Cassel's leading lady in The Dance (1962) and had one of the leads in a TV movie, Les trois chapeaux claques (1962), directed by Jean-Pierre Marchand.
She was reunited with Cassel in Arsène Lupin contre Arsène Lupin [fr] (1962) and was one of many stars of the television movie Teuf-teuf (1963).
She was in The Gentle Art of Seduction (1964) with Belmondo and Jean-Paul Brialy, with her sister in a support part. Dorléac was one of several French stars in Circle of Love (1964) directed by Roger Vadim, and appeared in a TV show, Les petites demoiselles (1964), directed by Deville and starring De Broca. She also appeared in the comedy films, Arsène Lupin contre Arsène Lupin (1962) opposite Jean-Claude Brialy, and Male Hunt (1964), with Belmondo and her sister.
That Man from Rio and Soft Skin were seen widely internationally and Dorléac received an offer to play the female lead in an expensive Hollywood financed epic, Genghis Khan (1965). She was David Niven's love interest in a spy film at MGM, Where the Spies Are (1966).
Dorléac appeared as the adulterous wife in Roman Polanski's black comedy Cul-de-sac (1966), shot in Britain. She returned to France to star in a TV adaption of the Prosper Mérimée novel Julie de Chaverny ou la Double Méprise (1966) directed by Marchand. Then she joined Gene Kelly and her sister Catherine, who was a cinematic star by this time, playing starstruck singing twins in The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), an homage to Hollywood musicals.
Dorléac’s parents were protective of her and her siblings, and well into adulthood she shared a bunk bed with her sister Catherine Deneuve in the family home, to which she regularly returned, according to Roger Vadim.[4]
In December 1960, she met future co-star Jean-Pierre Cassel at the Épi-Club, a fashionable Montparnasse nightclub where she danced and partied with her younger sister, who also met Vadim there through mutual acquaintances.[5] Cassel wrote in his 2004 autobiography that Dorléac had been the "love of his youth.”
She was briefly the companion of François Truffaut in 1964, during and after the filming of the film La Peau Douce. This affair quickly turned into a friendship between the actress and the director, who affectionately called her “Raspberry."[6][7]
In an interview with Libération, Guy Bedos, who also appears in Ce Soir ou Jamais by Michel Deville, evokes his missing relatives and significant others including her: "I had a fiancée, Françoise Dorléac. Since her death, I can no longer pass in front of the Louvre without seeing her.”[8]
Later she lived in an apartment at 159, boulevard Murat, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, just opposite the building where she grew up and where her parents lived.[9]
Death
Dorléac was on the brink of international stardom when she died in a traffic accident on 26 June 1967, aged 25.[10] She lost control of her rented Renault 10 and hit a signpost ten kilometres from Nice at the Villeneuve-Loubet exit of the autoroute La Provençale. The car flipped over in a field and burst into flames. Dorléac had been en route to Nice Airport after vacationing with Deneuve at Saint-Tropez and was afraid of missing her flight. She was pinned under the steering wheel and was seen struggling to get out of the car, but was unable to unbuckle her seat belt and open the door.[11] Police later identified her body only from the fragment of a cheque book, a diary, and her driver's licence.[citation needed]
Filmography
Feature films
Les loups dans la bergerie (1960) – Madeleine
Les portes claquent (1960) – Dominique (together with her sister Catherine Deneuve)
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