Catherine Deneuve has won a lot of acclaim as a great beauty, an award-winning actress, but her friend and frequent co-star Gerard Depardieu paid her perhaps the greatest compliment. He told her, "You're the man I always wanted to be". Recently, I had a chance to talk with a genuine legend.

She was just a teen-ager in her earliest movies when she became officially the most beautiful woman in the world. The French even named her as their national symbol of beauty, the Marianne.

(Clip from Chanel commercial)

Though American audiences know her best probably from a series of commercials for the perfume Chanel, she's always been the embodiment of what cosmopolitan men wanted and chic women wanted to be.

(Clip shown from "Place Vendome")

In her latest film, "Place Vendome", Deneuve plays a jeweler's widow, a struggling alcoholic who travels into the dangerous intrigue of the diamond trade and a dangerous new encounter with a painful old love, a part written for her by the film's female director.

I think that a woman director, she can even go where it hurts, you know, sometimes, and she doesn't care. She... when she thinks she wants it for the film, she goes all the way. I think men directors more can stop before... a little before.

(Clip shown from "Place Vendome")

Do you think heartbreak is good for you if you survive it ?
I think a heartbreak can make you not a better person, but a more open person to the o... to others.

Has it happened a lot in your life ? No.
It HAS happened to me, yes... of course, yes. I'm a... yes, I'm a woman in love, and I mean, in... my personal life has been, you know, a major thing in my life, you know. There is always, always an end to... most of the time to a love story, and I've suffered, yes, I've suffered in all those years. Yes, I had great pains for love affairs, yes.

In thinking about this film, and I don't want to give away the ending, but do you think, in general, most people will sacrifice for love ?
Most people, you mean most women (laughs). I have... I have nothing against men, but I rarely see a man giving up things, you know, for... for a woman. I don't think women realize, you know, they're much more crazy than men, you know. I don't think they give up things, you know, for love...

You think we're a little more crazy than men ?
Oh, yes. We lose control much more easily than men, I think, yes. A woman can lose her sense of, uh... (she gestures with her hand to mean a woman loses her "focus" or "center") for a love story for a man, yes. I think women can let it go, you know, to their own feelings and emotions. Men are more in control, yes. But I think it's a shame in a way. I think it's really a shame. I think you have to listen to the flow of your... of your emotions, not to be completely taken over by them, but you have to listen to it. I think it's important... but, um... (a funny little bewildered look comes over her face). What was your question ? (laughing)

I can't remember ! (and they both laugh together) Did you really say the famous thing that... that, "As a woman gets older, she has to choose between her bottom and her face" ?
Never. I would never say that... (big frown on her face)

You didn't ? We've been quoting it for years and attributing it to you.
Never would I say a thing like that. Never.

You wouldn't ?
I would... oh, no, because I believe the choice is not there (laughing).

(laughing) Can you have both, though ? Are you sure ?
I don't mind that much about the bottom. The truth, I mind more about the head than the face, yes. (Unintelligible)...at a certain age, you know, what's in the eyes, what's in your mouth, what's in your smile, in your capacity of listening to someone and answering someone is at least as important as just... because looking good at a certain age is not enough. People expect a little more, you know, after 40 (laughing).

Right. So five years from now, what would make you perfectly happy ?
But do I want to be perfectly happy ? It's not my goal, really, frankly to be perfectly happy.

No ?
I don't really believe in happiness. I believe in being happy, you know, having happy moments, but I don't really believe in happiness. It's not really my... in five years, what could ma... what could fulfill me in five years ? I think it would be almost the same thing, to still have my vi... vitality, that would be the major thing.

So there's a rumor all over Hollywood that you and Sharon Stone are going to do the next "Basic Instinct", that you're going to be part of it.
Oh really. Which part ? (laughing)

Uh...? (laughing)
Which part of the... (doesn't finish her sentence because she's laughing)

Uh... I don't know. (laughing)
(with a devilish grin) Am I on top, or is she ?

(At this point, the interviewer doubles over in her chair laughing. You can hear moans coming from the rest of the off-camera TV crew, and CD ducks her head with a chuckle).