Catherine Lachens
Birthday: Born in 1945-09-02 in Boulogne-Billancourt, Seine [now Hauts-de-Seine], France
Deathday: 2023-09-27
Catherine Lachens (born on September 2, 1945 in Boulogne-Billancourt (France) and died on September 27, 2023 in Paris), was a French actress with a flamboyant temperament, known for her glibness, husky voice and boundless energy. From a modest background, she worked in a variety of odd jobs before making her film debut in 1973 in Nina Companeez's L'Histoire très bonne et très joyeuse de Colinot trousse-chemise, alongside Brigitte Bardot. She went on to play a series of roles in popular comedies, working with directors such as Georges Lautner (Flic ou voyou, Mort d'un pourri), Philippe de Broca, Claude Zidi and Jean Yanne. She plays a variety of characters, from the big-hearted prostitute to the eccentric bourgeoise, from the school principal to the passionate teacher. On the stage, she alternates between the classics and contemporary plays, acting in Molière, Feydeau, Genet and Ionesco, under the direction of renowned directors such as Marcel Maréchal, Daniel Mesguich and Andrzej Wajda. She also performs internationally, notably in Russia. On television, she took part in shows such as L'Académie des neuf in the 1980s, then appeared in popular series such as Navarro, Sous le soleil and Scènes de ménages. A multi-talented artist, she also dabbles in sculpture, exhibiting alongside other artists such as Anny Duperey and Amanda Lear. In 2016, she was awarded the "Prix Reconnaissance".
TV Credits
Série rose
Character: La comtesse
An anthology of erotic stories by famous writers like Guy de Maupassant, Nicolas Edme Restif de La Bretonne, Marquis de Sade, Giovanni Boccaccio, Marquis de Foudras, Daniel Defoe, Anton Tchekov, Jin Ping Mei, and Aristophanes....
Arzak Rhapsody
Character: (voice)
Perched on his trusty anti-gravity Pteroid (where nothing serious can reach him), Arzak explores Desert "B" - a parallel world, populated by strange creatures, situated on the borders of dreams and a reality beyond reality. But isn't Arzak dreaming of a universe within himself... or within each and every one of us?...
Movie Credits
The Other One's Mug
Character: Florence
Martial Perrin is the president of a right-wing political party which is gearing itself up for a forthcoming election. When he learns that a notorious criminal named Kraus has escaped from prison, Perrin panics and goes into hiding. His deputy, Constant, hires Perrin’s cousin, Gilbert, an actor who is a perfect double of Perrin, to replace him. What Gilbert does no know is that the killer Kraus is bumping off the people who were implicated in the affair for which he was arrested, and that Perrin...
It Could Be Worse
Character: Inspector Lanvin
A macho junk shopkeeper, a lunar lawyer and a storekeeper meet by pure chance and develop the century's hold-up....
The Blood of Others
Character: Mme Grant
In the German-occupied Paris, Helene is torn between the love for her boyfriend Jean, working for the resistance and the German administrator Bergmann, who will do anything to gain her affection....
The Beautiful Story
Character: La chasseuse de tête
A film with emphasis on visuals and music, the plot concerns characters who meet in present time, mainly the male gypsy Jesus, and the female thief and con-artist Odona, who share parallel experiences from lives 2000 years in the past. These stories are juxtaposed....
The Gang
Character: Janine
In 1945, as World War Two comes to a close, five small time crooks unite to form a gang. After several bold robberies they become notorious as "the front-wheel drive gang". The police attempt to stop their crime spree with little success, but how long will their luck last?...
The Medic
Character: Zoa
The film is set in a modern war, probably between a European country and a country in the Far East. Behind the battle lines, in a medical unit, a surgeon falls in love with an idealistic nurse after an initially difficult meeting....
Dis bonjour à la dame !..
Character: Mrs. Jeannot, the neighbor
Robert Ferry, a PTT employee, is having problems with his two sons. The elder has impregnated his girlfriend, a young hippie, and the younger, Daniel, is said to have homosexual tendencies. Determined to put his son back on the straight and narrow, Robert decides to go against his principles and force a young girl on him......
The Maid
Character: Catherine Olivier
A man goes off to Paris to start his new job at a bank. When he falls in love with a beautiful woman, he decides to work as her maid -- until he discovers she not only is his boss, but his colleague at the bank....
Venetian Red
Character: La Giro
Venice. March 1735. The carnival is in full swing Everybody's happy mood and the lively streets are filled with musicians, mimes, clowns and acrobats of pickpockets who practice their craft each, displaying a colorful rainbow and sounds. At every corner, there is something going on that should not be missed - especially if it's something forbidden. However, some people are concerned about something else. One is Carlo Goldoni young lawyer of 27 years, he dreams only theater and he thinks only the...
Le Cri du cochon
Character:
On vacation in the country, a group of friends are requisitioned by a city official to work at the slaughterhouse....
Bright Days Ahead
Character: Sylviane
Bright days ahead? Caroline has retired, at last. A new life lies before her: time to take care of her children, her husband, and, most of all, herself. However, she soon comes to realize that this new freedom is synonymous with boredom and idleness. Especially when she receives a membership to her neighborhood’s senior club as a birthday present… Reluctant at first, she nevertheless decides to take the plunge. Oddly enough, she meets great people there, starting with the young computer science ...
Molière's Last Stage
Character: Marquise de Sablé
Royal Palace Theatre, Paris . February 17th 1673, the King’s theatre group is playing « Le Malade Imaginaire » when Moliere started spitting blood, but he takes the decision to keep playing until the end. During his agony, he let enter in the theatre all the elements and ghost who made his life. Starting a fight to preserve his dignity, he plan to transfigure his death in a last laugh instrument....
Incorrigible
Character: Girl at the educators office
Victor Vautier is incorrigible: he's in constant motion, working several cons at once, using different names and changing disguises. He's charming and outrageous, incapable of uttering a sentence that isn't embellished or an outright lie. His life goal is to make enough money to build a sea wall to protect Mont-Saint-Michel. Charlotte, a parole officer, shows up: she's young and seems taken in by Victor. He discovers she lives above the Senlus Museum, where her parents are the curators. With two...
The Two Crocodiles
Character: Greta
A taxi driving, strip club managing conman chooses a salesman as a mark. The latter falls for his hospitality, but soon appears to be already in trouble....
Two Lions in the Sun
Character: Babette
Paul and Rene, two men in their forties weary with life. One a widower, the other is divorced and pays alimony to his ex-wife. They live together, go on vacations together. This last vacation has been a washout and so is their return....
Le Divorcement
Character: Maître Larose
In this rambling comic tale about a man and a wife, with four children, who calmly announce to the children that they want to divorce one another, it is impossible to tell who is dissatisfied with whom about what. They had seemed to be a perfect couple. Their flabbergasted children have mixed feelings, and the most difficult thing about the divorce, besides understanding why it is taking place at all, is deciding what will happen with the couple's numerous pets....
It's Hard Killing Someone Even on a Monday
Character: La vieille
Jean doesn't want to stagnate in the anonymity of an unattractive life anymore. He chose to start a new career very mediatic but quite dangerous....
Monsieur Papa
Character: Miss Carpentier
In this family comedy, Papa has no end of trouble getting his young son to accept his new girlfriend....
The arrest
Character: Lola Lamaret
A young writer has just written a new novel, which has been accepted by an editor. A simple and familiar story about the terrifying power the state has over people’s lives....
The Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot
Character:
Colinot's world is turned upside down when his fiancee is kidnapped....
À vot' bon cœur
Character: Madame Bisance
French independent director Paul Vecchiali playfully bites the hand that periodically feeds him (and many of the nation's other creative filmmakers) in this dark comedy. Writer and director Vecchiali stars as a moviemaker named Paul Vecchiali, who is trying to complete his latest project, a dramatic love story about a young couple whose relationship is complicated by the man's addiction to drugs. Short on funds, Vecchiali approaches the National Cinema Center, who offer loans and grants to indep...
Ariane
Character: Erato
A dreamlike adaptation of the legend of Ariadne and the Minotaur....
These Sorcerers Are Mad
Character: Thérèse Picard
Julien est envoyé par son patron à l'île Maurice, où il fait la connaissance d'Henri, un chômeur professionnel. Un soir de beuverie, les deux hommes se soulagent au pied d'une statue sacrée. Offensés par ce sacrilège, les dieux les punissent en leur ôtant leur reflet et en les faisant léviter. Si cette situation leur paraît au début invivable, les deux hommes finissent cependant par tirer parti de ces désavantages pour régler leurs problèmes personnels....
French Cuisine
Character: Maman François
François and Charlotte directed together a gourmet hotel and restaurant on the edge of the sea, but their marital relationship is not fixed beauty: obsessive hard, Francis wants his first star in the Michelin Guide while Charlotte, at the dawn of the quarantine, dreams of a first child. This already complicated situation will literally explode the day where Charlotte's first husband, Alex, disembarked in their lives while everyone believed him dead in the terrible tsunami of 2004......
Monsieur Albert
Character: Roseline
In this poetic slice-of-life film that reveals the problems and needs of a group of lowlife characters, unwed mother Vivaine (Dominique Labourier) falls in love with working-class youth Francois (Patrick Chesnais) who has a shady past. Albert (Philippe Noiret), a no-good insurance con-artist, poses for many years as Francois' friend, but tragedy ensues when Albert comes between the lovers, and Francois and Albert resort to physical violence to settle their differences....
Let's Make a Dirty Movie
Character: Laurence
A bumbling film crew attempts to make a porno movie....
Bad Hats
Character: Catherine
In this routine drama, two men (a crass Brit and a slow Frenchman) decide to evade the war in 1917, but their flight on a stolen boat goes awry and they end up on the coast of France, close to the fighting they wanted to leave behind. Once on shore, they make the acquaintance of a like-minded young widow who begins an affair with both men (she just wants to have a child by each) -- but their unusually idyllic existence is threatened with imminent tragedy as the French army advances ever closer....
Silence... We're Shooting
Character: Paulette Fromenteau
...
Rosa la rose, fille publique
Character: Quarante
A radiant young sex worker thrives amidst the clients of Paris’s Les Halles under the protectiveness of her pimp. Her carefully balanced existence unravels when she meets a working‑class man and falls in love, forcing her to confront the emotional and social consequences of pursuing a different path....
Flic Story
Character: Jenny
The film story depicts Emile Buisson, following the death of his wife and child, escaping from a psychiatric institution in 1947 and returning to Paris. Buisson, who three years later would become France's public enemy number one, begins a murderous rampage through the French capital....
Dumb But Disciplined
Character: Ingrid Cochy
Jacques does his military service. Shy, round and clumsy, he is forced to agree to be the driver of a special ambulance....
Swann in Love
Character: Aunt
In Belle Époque Paris, a 19th-century Parisian aristocrat falls in love with a lower-class prostitute who seduces him but never loves him....
Bonjour Madame, Bonjour Monsieur
Character: Neighbor
A man with a serious illness, visits his doctor. His condition does not improve. So, he asks him to come back with his wife. But here is the problem, he makes believe for several years to ......
On s'en fout… nous on s'aime
Character: Grégory's mother
...
French Twist
Character: Fabienne, boss of the Sopha
After learning of her husband's infidelities, a housewife invites an itinerant lesbian to move in with them. None of their lives will ever be the same again....
Cop or Hood
Character: Mrs. Simone Langlois
When the local police inspector was found dead in a prostitute's house, police division commissioner Stan Borowitz is sent to investigate the situation. Posing as the prostitute's long-lost brother "Antonio Cerruti," he discovers a mare's nest of police corruption. In fact, in this comedy thriller the whole town is corrupt. If they were closely examined, Stan's methods for pursuing this investigation might embarrass the police. For instance, he drives into a criminal's house in a fancy, expensiv...
One Fine Day, a Hairdresser
Character: Wealthy Client
How do you ask a wild, impetuous hairdresser on a date if you're a pathologically timid philosophy student with no social skills?...
The Prize of Peril
Character: Madeleine
In a futuristic society, contestants pit their survival skills against each other in a fight to the death for cash prizes, and the contest is aired live on television....
Too Shy to Try
Character: La camionneuse
Pierre is a hotel cashier in Vichy, so shy that he answers an ad from the Psychology Institute and can't say no to the salesman, Aldo; he spends 6,000 francs on tapes, books, and a punching bag. Soon after, he's smitten by Agnes, a hotel guest with a model's looks and photographers wherever she goes. When she leaves for Nice, he follows, meeting Aldo on the way. Aldo becomes his boldness coach. Pierre gets a job washing dishes where Agnes is staying, but after a week or so, she's off to Deauvill...
Le Sixième Doigt
Character: Carole
...
Confession of a Dredger
Character: La femme au chapeau
During the summer, Paul, provincial student, shy and bookish, went to Paris to integrate Sciences-Po, bed on a bench in the Luxembourg Gardens. One afternoon, while the eye follows a young girl he had noticed for several days, he made the acquaintance of Fab, a seducer getter, effective and apparent misogyny, which will teach him the basics drag. Starting first with a documented learning every evening in his diary, Paul soon to be questionable practices to limit crime....
I've Got You, You've Got Me by the Chin Hairs
Character: Responsable régie
In this satire, a police detectiveis investigating the disappearance and kidnapping of the host of a television dance show. However, instead of finding his man, he is trapped into becoming a contestant on a children's quiz show. What's worse is that he becomes a very successful contestant....
Violette & Francois
Character: Carla Isalvi
Violette and François are a couple with a child. As they cannot lead a good life with odd jobs, François starts to steal....
Death of a Corrupt Man
Character: (uncredited)
In the middle of the night, deputy Philippe Dubaye wakes up his old friend Xavier Maréchal with disturbing news: he has just killed Serrano, a racketeer with extant political connections. Serrano kept proofs of Dubaye's involvement in corrupt dealings and was poised to use them against the deputy. Xavier readily agrees to cover up for his old pal Philippe, but he soon runs into difficulties. Nobody believes Dubaye's alibi. And everybody -- influential personalities, powerful businessmen, dubious...
Pauvre Eros
Character: Nicole
A man decides to use the classifieds to replace his mistress who left him....
What a Flash!
Character:
The producers of this French film took approximately 100 people, put them on a soundstage and had them improvise this film based on the premise that they are on a spaceship escaping from the dictators of earth and only have a few days to live. Improvisation is a dangerous art-form; unprepared amateurs invariably come up with gross caricatures when challenged to improvise. The actors' choices in this film include an allegorical pageant of the life of Jesus, a marriage, an orgy, and some genuinely...