Rudi Chelminski: And yet you have said your favorite actress is Marilyn Monroe who was renowned as a sex object?
Catherine Deneuve: I have an admiration for Marilyn Monroe that—no, it’s more than admiration. I have a love for that woman. For me she represents the highest point of femininity. There’s something childish and sincere and overwhelming with her, I never saw anyone who gave off so much charm and warmth and tenderness and femininity all at once.
R: Then you admired her sex appeal?
C: It was sex appeal without vulgarity, not sexual sex, if you see what I mean. It was very abstract. You had the feeling she could fall asleep and no one would take advantage of her.
R: You think, then, Marilyn Monroe had appeal for women as well as for men?
C: I think women adore Marilyn, because she never represented a threat for them. She never frightened women the way that Marlene Dietrich did, for example. Marlene wasn’t sympathetic to women. You sensed that she could come with her sophistication and her Germanic determination and take your man away. She was the vamp. Marilyn was never the vamp. She was more like a real person.-People Magazine’s interview with Catherine Deneuve (Sept. 02, 1974; Vol.2. No.10)