The actress chose the stage name "Robinson" after the novel Robinson Crusoe because it denoted liberty, as her Czech birth name meant "freedom". She was the daughter of a Czechoslovak pastry cook father and a French tram ticket collector mother. At 14 Robinson, whose real name was Svoboda, began work in a factory, and then became an errand-girl before working as a maid for a painter.

Her daughter Sophie-Julia (from a relationship with Jean-Louis Jaubert, from the group 'Les Compagnons de la Chanson') died of AIDS in 1993 aged 38.

Had a son, Jean-François, from her first marriage with Robert Dalban

Member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1958