Catherine Spaak

Spaak's first role was in the French 13-minute short L'hiver (1959), directed by Jacques Gautier, which was followed by a brief uncredited role in the French prison break film Le Trou (1960), which was directed by Jacques Becker. Spaak's brief appearance in Le Trou caught the eye of a Paris television reporter, and his subsequent interview with her was seen by Sophia Loren who thought that Spaak would be suitable for a major role in Sweet Deceptions, a film that her producer husband Carlo Ponti was intending to make in Rome.[10][12] Released in 1960, Spaak's role as a 17-year-old student who has an affair with a middle-aged man brought her to attention of the wider public.[5]

Spaak soon became a teenage star and It girl, and between the ages 15 to 18, she was the lead actress in at least 12 movies. In her initial roles, her dialogues were dubbed until she had learned Italian. Media coverage at the time dubbed her a "new woman of the '60s", and her hairstyle and fashion sense became oft-imitated by teenage girls throughout Italy.

As an adult, Spaak appeared in many comedies and a few dramas from the mid-1960s through the early 1980s. Among her most notable titles are Circle of Love (1964, directed by Roger Vadim), The Man, the Woman and the Money (1965, starring Marcello Mastroianni),[13] The Incredible Army of Brancaleone (1966, written by Age & Scarpelli), Adultery Italian Style (1966). Her first film role in an American production was as the mistress of an investor who wants to buy a landmark New Orleans hotel in the 1967 release Hotel.[5]

Spaak's next significant role was as a young widow opposite Jean-Louis Trintignant in the 1968 sex comedy The Libertine. This was followed by Diary of a Telephone Operator (1969, with Claudia Cardinale), the giallo film The Cat o' Nine Tails (1971, written and directed by Dario Argento), the nunsploitation film Story of a Cloistered Nun (1973), the controversial comedy My Darling Slave (1973), the Spaghetti Western Take a Hard Ride (1975) opposite Jim Brown and Lee Van Cleef, Sunday Lovers (1980), Miele di donna (1981) and Alice (2010, written and directed by Oreste Crisostomi).

She originated the role of Rossana in the Riccardo Pazzaglia-Domenico Modugno musical Cyrano (unrelated to the Anthony Burgess-Michael J. Lewis production of the same name) in 1979.

In the 1960s and 70s, Spaak also developed a parallel singing career, recording a number of albums. As a singer, she was regarded by some as the Italian equivalent of French chanteuse Françoise Hardy. Spaak recorded some of Hardy's songs in 1963 for the DET label under the direction of Ezio Leoni, who had previously worked with Hardy.[13]

As her film career began to decline in the 1980s, Spaak transitioned to journalism and television. She was a co-host of the Canale 5-Rete 4 program Forum, one of the longest-running continuous shows in Italian history, from 1985 to 1988. She then hosted a popular talk show called Harem that ran for 16 years, from 1988 to 2002.[5] She then hosted a short-lived talk show, Il sogno dell'angelo, on La7 from 2002 to 2003.

In 2007, she participated as a contestant on the Italian edition of Dancing with the Stars, but was eliminated in the third round. In 2015, she appeared on the 10th season of the reality show L'isola dei famosi.