The daughter of an army doctor who died when she was seven, she was raised in Paris and was a 14-year-old cello student at the Conservatoire when her mother entered her in an audition for an adolescent role in the film Le Bal (1931). It was the start of a glorious long career in French and international films which saw her progress from fragile romantic ingenues to chic, elegant, sophisticated women-of-the-world roles. Throughout that long period she remained one of the screen's major stars, known and admired the world over as the embodiment and the essence of French femininity. During the Nazi occupation in WWII, she was marked for execution by the French underground for entertaining German troops but was later exonerated and resumed her film career. In addition to French productions, she also made films in the US, the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. She has also appeared on the stage and in the 60s entertained as a singer in concert and on records. In 1970, still delicate and lovely, she replaced Katharine Hepburn in the lead role in the Broadway musical Coco.