Catherine Spaak (3 April 1945 – 17 April 2022) was a French-born Italian actress and singer who acted in mostly in Italian films with some Hollywood and international productions. She is best known for her roles in the films Il Sorpasso (1962), The Empty Canvas (1963) and The Cat o' Nine Tails (1971). Early life Spaak was born on 3 April 1945 just outside of Paris in Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine, France, to former actress Claudie Clèves (née Alice Perrier) and Belgian screenwriter Charles Spaak. Her older sister was actress Agnès Spaak. She was also the niece of Belgian politician Paul-Henri Spaak, while her paternal grandmother was Marie Janson Spaak, Belgium's first female member of Parliament. Initially she wanted to be a ballerina and studied ballet in her youth, until she gave it up after being told she was too tall. Spaak was inspired to be an actress when in the summer of 1955, she accompanied her father to a film set, where she saw Gina Lollobrigida. In response to her parents announcing that they were divorcing and eager to leave the boarding school, Spaak left home at the age of 15 and moved to Italy, where she settled and eventually became a naturalized citizen. Film career 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 Dolci inganni, a film that her producer husband Carlo Ponti was intending to make in Rome. Released in 1960 (and known internationally released as Sweet Deceptions), Spaak's role as a 17-year-old student who has an affair with a middle-aged man bought her to attention of the wider public. Spaak soon became a teenage star, 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 learnt Italian. 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