Audrey Tautou will star as Coco Chanel in a $15 million biopic about the legendary French fashion designer. Tautou made a name for herself in the highly regarded 2001 film Amelie. She is a perfect choice for the role of Coco both in appearance and ability. The film, which will focus on Chanel's childhood and early womanhood, was specially conceived with Tautou in mind.

The woman who invented French chic was born into poverty as Gabrielle Chanel, the illegitimate daughter of a traveling salesman, in 1883. After the death of her mother and abandonment by her father she spent seven years in a Catholic orphanage, where she learned to sew. But fashion wasn't her first career choice. As a young woman, Chanel had ambitions to be a singer and it was while warbling "Who's Seen Coco in the Trocadero" in a cabaret that she acquired the nickname Coco.

While working as a cabaret singer, she also took to sewing the stage clothes for the likes of French cabaret star Mistinguette before being taken under the wing wealthy Balsan. His chateau became Chanel's home and her gateway to a new life.