She attended St. Joan of Arc College and later Paris Drama Conservatory, where she performed dramatic roles. She made her film debut when she was still at school. Jean Cocteau cast her in an uncredited role as a tall ballerina in The Testament of Orpheus (1960). When she was 18, she married the 41-year-old writer-director Pierre Gaspard-Huit, and he cast her in several films: The Iron Mask (1962); The Vengeance of Kali (1963), etc. When she was vacationing in Nassau, writer-producer Kevin McClory who was also vacationing there, saw her and recommended that she audition for his film Thunderball (1965). The role of Domino was originally to be an Italian woman: Dominetta Petacchi. Auger impressed the producers so much that they re-wrote the part to that of a French woman to better suit Auger. Although she took lessons to perfect her English, her voice was eventually dubbed by Nikki van der Zyl in this movie. Auger would claim that she related to her character Domino, as she and Domino were involved with older men. The most immediate by-product of Claudine's stardom was a semi-nude Playboy spread and a guest shot on an American TV special starring Danny Thomas and Bob Hope.

Thunderball launched Auger into a successful European movie career, but did little for her otherwise in the United States.

In 1971, she starred with two other Bond girls, Barbara Bach and Barbara Bouchet, in Black Belly of the Tarantula, a giallo mystery.

She had some roles in European films as Triple Cross (1966) (reuniting her with her James Bond director Terence Young) and The Killing Game (1967).

She was married to a businessman Peter Brent until his death in August 2008.