82 Years Old
On July 21, 1942, Claude Marie Rose Durafourd, future Vendell, was born in Lodève (Hérault), into a family of doctors. the one who will opt for the nickname Véronique Vendell for three brothers. Two will follow the family path, another will become a painter. She arrives in Paris with a real battle plan, everything is planned, thought out, studied, it can only succeed. With her look directly inspired by the essential Brigitte Bardot mixed with a zest of Monroe and a hint of Mansfield, Véronique sets out to attack film festivals with touching regularity and determination. She is of course all blonde and smiles and it goes without saying, dressed in the most revealing dresses possible. Véronique will always arrive in Cannes in a transparent blouse as if it were a ticket to the top of the bill. She quickly debuted at the Théâtre du Gymnase with “Adieu Prudence” and was filming “Rencontres” at the cinema. The newspapers publish photos of her tiny bikinis, material to feed the slew of weeklies devoted to cinema in constant demand for empty information to complete the magazines in question. The champions of the genre being Jayne Mansfield, Elaine Stewart and Corinne Calvet, Véronique will not be left out. However, she filmed, and her filmography is consistent. Thus, if she begins to rotate in “Les Amours Célèbres” between Feuillère, Girardot and Laforêt, she only appears for a fleeting moment. This cinema will be less tender with Véronique than what we still call the celebrity press, but she will nevertheless be able to film for big names thanks mainly to Italy. In “Lo La Conoscevo Bene” in 1965 she already seems to be parodying herself. Wearing a lamé dress cut low to the waist and which we will see her carrying around to quite a few festivals, she is wearing a platinum blonde bun that seems to have been polished with explosives. Which in hindsight gives it quite a punk side! She's a starlet invited to a private party and has only one line: "Oh yes, I've been in the movies." An advertisement for a lipstick. Only my mouth but on a giant screen measuring five by ten meters! » To which a smartass replies, “Make advertisements for panties instead!” » She was also part of a few American adventures, notably with “La Nuit des Généraux” where she was part of the “French contingent” with Philippe Noiret, Juliette Greco and Pierre Mondy. But alas, Véronique will be out of luck again. While she was expected to be a real revelation at the film's premiere in New York, the weather conditions were disastrous; Her plane arrives very late and not only does she miss the ceremony but she finds herself stuck at the airport in a New York paralyzed by a snowstorm! Not a taxi on the horizon to take him to his hotel, failing to bring him to the covetousness of New York photographers...
Lodève, France on 21st July 1942
