Catherine Spaak

Catherine Spaak (3 April 1945 – 17 April 2022) was a Franco‑Italian actress, singer, model and television personality who became one of the most recognizable “It girls” of the 1960s in Italy. Born in Boulogne‑Billancourt, France, she was the daughter of Belgian screenwriter Charles Spaak and French actress Claudie Clèves, and grew up in a family that included politicians and artists such as her uncle Paul‑Henri Spaak and sister Agnès Spaak. After an early fascination with ballet, she abandoned the discipline when she was told she was too tall, and a trip to a film set with her father in 1955 sparked her ambition to become an actress. At the age of fifteen she left school and moved to Italy, where she eventually obtained naturalised citizenship and launched a prolific film career that spanned more than six decades. Her screen debut came in the short L’hiver (1959) and a brief uncredited part in Le Trou (1960) caught the eye of a Paris television reporter, leading to a breakthrough role in Dolci inganni (1960) opposite the legendary Sophia Loren, which introduced her as a provocative 17‑year‑old student. Her youthful charm and modern style made her the face of commedia all'italiana, and between the ages of fifteen and eighteen she starred in at least twelve films, often dubbed until she mastered Italian. Notable titles include Il Sorpasso (1962), The Man, the Woman and the Money (1965), The Cat o' Nine Tails (1971) and the giallo classic The Libertine (1968). Parallel to her acting, Spaak recorded several albums in the 1960s and 70s, earning comparisons to French chanteuse Françoise Hardy and covering some of her songs. When her film work declined in the 1980s, she reinvented herself as a television presenter, co‑hosting the long‑running legal show Forum (1985‑1988) and later the popular talk show Harem (1988‑2002), cementing her status as a beloved media figure. Her personal life included four marriages—Fabrizio Capucci, Johnny Dorelli, Daniel Rey and Vladimiro Tuselli—and two children, Sabrina and Gabriele. A convert to Buddhism, a vegetarian and an animal‑rights activist, Spaak remained culturally influential until her death in Rome on 17 April 2022.