Born near Paris, and raised in Saint Germain-en-Laye, Cléry started her acting career in the late 1960s very shortly under the name 'Corinne Piccoli'. Her first important film was Joël Le Moigne's Les Ponettes with Johnny Halliday and famous DJ Hubert Wayaffe, whom she married at the end of the filming, aged 17.

Cléry first came to prominence in the controversial movie Story of O (1975) (Histoire d'O). She also modelled for a noted cover of the French magazine Lui in which she is holding a huge copy of the book Story of O.