The beating heart of Mireille Darc

Mireille Darc is known to the general public as the blonde transvestite in the breathtaking backless dress opposite the astonished Pierre Richard, “the blonde with the black shoe.” Who doesn’t remember the famous scene from Yves Robert’s spy comedy, which was a huge international hit in 1972. The film’s director did not inform Pierre Richard about the daring back of the black dress, monastic in front, in order to achieve an authentic surprise effect that was indeed not missed.

The dress, designed by Guy Laroche, is currently on display, no less, atThe Louvre MuseumIn 2005, Mireille Darc auctioned off 165 designer outfits, coats, and dresses that she wore in films and plays in which she acted, but this mythical dress she donated to the museum.

Miriam's heart stopped beating.

Actress and director Mireille Darc was born in 1938 with a heart murmur. Her parents did not take her for medical treatment. Mireille paid the price for the neglect years later, at the age of 41, when she was urgently hospitalized for open-heart surgery that lasted 7 hours. She underwent another open-heart surgery about 4 years before her death. During her adult life, in which she became a rich and happy star, she was operated on twice, received the best treatment, and withstood all the trials with great courage. However, the damage and suffering did not let up. Her heart, which was full of love for her loved ones and the audience in general, stopped beating on August 28 of this year.

At the age of 79, Mireille did not want her life with her beloved partner, interior designer Pascal Despres, to be cut short. She knew what suffering her disappearance would cause him. And she loved life and knew how to adapt to its events. But after a dramatic year of frequent hospitalizations after her second open-heart surgery, fate was sealed and Mireille crossed the border into the unknown on the night between Sunday and Monday when her faithful husband Pascal Despres and her eternal friend Alain Delon Holding her hand. Even Antoine Delon, Alain's son, whom Miriam raised as if he were her own son but without taking the place of his mother Natalie, did not leave her bed.

Mireille Darc was one of the most popular actresses France In the 15s and XNUMXs, and Alain Delon's partner for XNUMX years, but also much more. In her documentaries, her second career, she raised awareness of the suffering of the anonymous and spared no effort in her humanitarian work. Mireille Darc knew what suffering was, mental and physical. The sexy and elegant blonde, the adored star, whose photos adorned the covers of magazines, alone or in Delon's arms, grew out of a painful childhood that she had to heal on her own.

childhood

Born in Toulon to a gardener father and a mother who owned a small grocery store, Mireille Egroz was a sad child, and not just because her parents were poor and her classmates made fun of her for her old, sloppy clothes. Mireille grew up in a house without electricity, running water, or heating. Her parents worked from morning to night. Her mother served customers in the grocery store with kindness and loyalty, showing great generosity toward those in need, but she neglected her little daughter, who was thirsty for attention. Her father, Marcel, grew vegetables and fruit in the garden and brought them to the grocery store, in silence. When he opened his mouth, it was to throw remarks at little Mireille along the lines of “Here comes the bastard to the table,” when the mother turned her back or was not present.

From the moment the girl understood the meaning of the nickname he had given her, she suspected that Marcel was not her biological father. This suspicion was confirmed many years later, in 2007, while she was crossing the Shanez Eliza, received a phone call from a medium named Patricia Darre who asked to meet her. Patricia told her that Mireille's mother, who had died about ten years earlier, had spoken to her, to Patricia, and that both fathers had also spoken to the medium. Mireille, she said, was not Marcel's biological daughter but the mother of Edmond, a soldier in the French navy who had been killed in Indochina.

This hypothesis, assuming it is true (Mireille’s mother denied it outright), explains the parents’ unloving attitude towards the girl. In the French television program “Le Divan” (“The Sofa”), in which journalist Marc-Olivier Fougeille interviewed Mireille Darc, Mireille recounted a very significant episode in her childhood. When she was 6 years old, one day her father Marcel took her to the attic and showed her a hanging rope. He intended to hang himself. “It’s your fault, your existence ruined my life,” he scolded the girl, who cried, screamed, asked for forgiveness, begged him not to carry out his threat.

https://youtu.be/u1iqoO536y8

It is amazing to see with what restraint and understanding 77-year-old Mireille Darc spoke about the painful events of her childhood. Mireille explained that the whole family suffered from the situation. For the father Marcel, the girl symbolized betrayal and for the mother, the girl symbolized an accident. Today, Mireille told her friend Marc-Olivier Pouziel, her love for both of them only grows stronger. They raised her, they were there, and the rest is not important.

But in real life, things were not like that. The dark-haired, sad and worried, unloved girl buried the cryptic scene in her soul and waited for the moment when she would grow up so that she could go out into life and be independent and happy. Miriam decided that her life would be cheerful and joyful and escaped from the family framework as soon as she could.

Career in Paris

Mireille watched Brigitte Bardot in the film “And God Created Woman” with admiration and hoped to be like her. She graduated with honors from the (free) regional school of the arts and at the age of 18, with letters of recommendation and a sandwich in her pocket, boarded a train for Paris. Alongside jobs as a babysitter, as a walker with a countess’s dog, as a model, and so on, Mireille took acting lessons and barely made a living, but success soon dawned on her. Roles in theater, television, and film were offered to her and they didn’t stop.

Director Georges Lautner's group – Lino Ventura, Jean Lefebvre, Francis Blanche – no small Machos and even misogynists, embraced her as a little sister and respected her as a witty and clever woman, with a sense of humor, strong and determined. Lautner knew that the transformed, smart, hardworking, talented and optimistic Miriam would be able to embody the new values ​​of the modern woman. Her youthful charm and impudence captivated him. He made her a star and, in the process, she changed her image. Miriam changed her last name to Dark, like Joan of Arc, and dyed her hair blonde, an act that symbolized for her the transition to light, joy, success and fame – compensation, not revenge, for her neglected childhood.

Mireille never wanted revenge, but her daring nude photos, which graced the covers of magazines of the time, were intended to attract the attention of her parents and even to provoke and anger them. Georges Lautner, under whose tutelage she played in 13 films, invented for her the image of the sensual and human blonde. From a timid girl, who suffered from her slightly boyish body, Mireille became a coquettish, self-confident woman, a sex symbol. Mireille Darc played alongside the greats of the time, Jean Gabin, לואי דה פינס, Lino Ventura, Bernard Blié, Jacqueline Mayan, Michel Serreau. Michel Audiard wrote scripts especially for her and shared with her his love of words, literature and the sport of wrestling.

There were no books in Miriam's childhood home, but she made up for the lack by reading the Molière, Racine, Voltaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Sade, Montralin, Kafka, Celine, Camus and more. It is not surprising that Lautner's closed group, purely for masculinity, accepted her as an equal. After many comedic films by Lautner and others, she wanted to act in more intellectual films and turned to Jean-Luc Godard, in whose film "Weekend" from 1967 she appeared in the lead role, Corinne, alongside Jean-Yan.

The roles of the innocent or the prostitute no longer satisfied Mireille. She suggested that Lautner direct the bold and revolutionary film for the time, “Gallia,” in which she would play a new kind of woman, the likes of which had never been seen in cinema, a liberated and responsible young woman who took power into her own hands, who led her life as she pleased and changed lovers as she pleased. Neither a prostitute nor a bourgeois. And so, two years before May 68, Mireille Darc became an icon for an entire generation of young women who saw her image on the screen as a role model. Mireille Darc became the symbol of the women’s liberation movement.

In real life, Mireille d'Arc was also a free and responsible woman who decided her own fate, but unlike Galia, the character she played, she did not have many adventures, but rather experienced three great and significant loves that shaped her life.

15 years with Alain Delon

When Alain Delon was in the midst of filming the famous film “The Pool” with Romy Schneider, it seemed that the former lovers were reenacting the story of their historical passion not only in film but also in reality, but the real truth was much more complex. Alain Delon rushed to Rome every weekend to join Mireille Darc, who was filming “The Monte Carlo Rally,” directed by Ken Anakin, alongside Bourvil, Peter Brook, and Tony Curtis. Delon sent a telegram to Mireille to offer her a role in Jean Erman’s gangster film, “Jeff.” “That would be the role of your life,” he wrote to her. “Why don’t you come to Rome and bring me the script yourself?” Mireille replied. “Jeff” may not have been the role of her life, but Alain stormed into them and didn’t leave them until her last breath, as he put it.

For Delon, the agony of the Markovitz affair began. His bodyguard and former assistant, the criminal Stephane Markovitz, was found shot to death on October 1, 1968, and Delon underwent lengthy interrogations on suspicion of having ordered the murder. Alain Delon was in the midst of a separation and divorce process from Natalie Delon, the only woman he had officially married. Markovitz, to Delon's displeasure, had a brief love affair with Natalie and was fired from his job by Delon shortly before the murder. Markovitz humiliated Delon with his courtship of Natalie, and she, according to rumors, threatened him in court: "I'll kill you if you touch my wife." From here to Delon's suspicion, the road was short.

On October 8, 1968, two police inspectors arrived at the set of the film “The Pool,” directed by Jacques Deray, at the villa in Rematuel to question Alain Delon about his relationship with his former friend Markowitz, who had lived in his house for two years. In the film itself, not two inspectors arrive at the villa in Rematuel, but only one inspector, but the similarity between reality and the plot of the film is chilling. In the film, Alain Delon also plays the role of a murder suspect who is being investigated by the police. Jean-Paul (Alain Delon) causes the drowning of Harry (Maurice Ronay), his close friend and the former lover of his partner Marianne (Romy Schneider). Marianne covers up for Jean-Paul and does not reveal to the police inspector that it was he who drowned the arrogant Harry, who had never stopped humiliating him, during a fit of madness. It should be noted, however, that while in the film Alain Delon plays the role of a murderer, in reality itself, after 8 tedious years, all guilt will be removed from Alain Delon, who was not involved in the murder of Stefan Markowitz.

During those two difficult years in which Delon and his associates, including Mireille, were investigated on false suspicions, Mireille stood by him and supported him without reservation while most of his friends turned their backs on him. And it was not only in this test that Mireille stood. At the time, Delon was in a relationship with a dancer and actress from Guadeloupe, Madeleine Mey, who, incidentally, appears in a minor role in the film “The Pool,” in which she dances sometimes alone and sometimes with Delon.

Mireille agreed to live in the triangle until 1972 when she went to the Caribbean to star in a Claude Lelouch adventure film with Jacques Berle And never came back. Madely and Berl fell in love at first sight and lived together until Berl's last day. Inspired by her life as a side in a triangle, Mireille Darc wrote a screenplay. Roger Kahn took on the biopic, Alain Delon the production, and in 1969 the film “Madely” was released, starring Delon, Mireille, and Madely. The triangle in reality played itself out in the film.

Mireille and Delon acted together in 13 films, including “Borsellino” in 1970 and its sequel “Borsellino & Co.” in 1974. That same year, Delon “ordered” Lautner a film in which he and Mireille would star in the lead roles. The result was “Breasts of Ice,” in which Delon played the role of an influential lawyer who took under his wing a mysterious and attractive psychopath, Peggy, played by Mireille Darc. Peggy murdered her husband with an ice pick and is suspected of other murders (reminds me of something?).

In 1977, “The Man in a Hurry” was released, directed by Edouard Moliner, based on the eponymous novel by Paul Moran from 1941. Delon and Mireille starred in the lead roles, Delon as an antiques dealer and frenzied art collector and Mireille as his wife who cannot keep up with his enthusiastic pace of life.

Darc and Delon, Delon and Darc. Little by little, Mireille pushed her private career to the sidelines and devoted herself to the service of her lover, whom she adored without limit. After ten years of devoting herself to cinema without stopping, she wanted to be just a woman, not an actress. During this period, starting in 1968, Mireille Darc was happy. She renovated, designed and managed the successful star's residences, a huge apartment on the Quai Kennedy - a 1200 square meter triplex, overlooking the Seine River in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, a racehorse farm near Aix-en-Provence Provence, a village estate in Douchy, about 150 km from Paris, a palace in Marrakech.

At the estate in Duchy, where the couple often spent their weekends, Miriam rebuilt the ruined castle over the course of 3 years, designing a house to host friends, a residence and training camp for boxers, a duck pond, a chapel, a dog cemetery, all according to Alain's wishes and whims, those he said and those she guessed, creating a paradise for him.

Mireille lived in his shadow, played all the roles, was his mother, wife and sister. She took care of the 25 dogs, managed the staff, was responsible for Delon's business - ties, perfumes, watches, glasses, furniture and more, raised 4-year-old Anthony, the son of Alain and Natalie, protected the frenzied child and reconciled him with his father gently and patiently. Mireille Darc loved and was loved, no longer worried about her livelihood, enjoyed the freedom that she and Alain gave each other, gained enriching life experience, enjoyed everything, was ready for anything. But not Alain Delon. In 1980, Mireille underwent open-heart surgery under the direction of Professor Christian Chevrol. Mireille was warned that she would not survive the pregnancy. Her dream of starting a family with Alain was dashed. Alain wanted more children.

In 1981, while filming his film “In the Skin of a Cop,” Delon fell head over heels in love with the young, 21-year-old actress Anne Pariot and broke up with Mireille. After a few months of living in a triangle (what started as a triangle ended the same way), Mireille packed a suitcase and left the village castle in Douchy to cry in a one-room apartment lent to her by her friend, fashion designer Guy Laroche. Not for long.

Mireille continued to take care of Delon's business and traveled to Italy and Switzerland to supervise the production of Alain's tie brand. In a tunnel in the Aosta Valley in Italy, she was injured in an accident that caused her to seriously fracture her spine. No, Mireille did not intend to commit suicide, she was not the driver. The truck, into which the car was stuck, crushed her badly but miraculously did not damage Mireille's heart, which had just come out of surgery.

Alain Delon rushed to the hospital in Aosta and transferred Mireille to Geneva, duly fulfilling his role as her partner, relaying information to the media, smiling into the microphones. No one yet knew that Alain and Mireille were no more. There, at her bedside, was also the director of the Europe 1 radio station, the journalist, the historian (author of books on the Crusades), the athlete (an avid cyclist), the lyricist (for the singer Michel Sardo) – Pierre Barre, Mireille’s second love. On the day she was injured, she was going to have dinner with him, on a first date. But recovering from the injury after three months of immobile cast, she hurried to join him, strapped in a back brace, for a daring rally in the desert, in a jeep and by helicopter, the “Rally of the Pharaohs.”

Pierre Barre was the right man in the right place at the right time. Very different from Alain, but no less fascinating, Pierre opened up a new world for Mireille that filled her with joy. The idyll lasted five years and ended tragically when Pierre Barre died in 1989 at the age of 52 from liver cancer after a failed transplant. Mireille “stole” his body from the hospital so that he could spend a symbolic time at home. When her day came, she would ask to die at home, surrounded by her loved ones. Until almost the last moment, Mireille was sure that Pierre would recover. The grief was heavy. Mireille cried and screamed at night, but in the morning she put a smile on her face.

Mireille never burdened others, neither in her grief nor in her troubles and distress. A few hours before his death, as he lay dying, Pierre sent for Alain to the hospital and swore to take care of Mireille. Alain Delon swore. The bond of friendship between Alain Delon and Mireille Darc never ceased, until the last moment. Each of them was present in the other's life. She said of Alain that he was her son, her father, her lover, her friend. After her death, Delon declared that she, Mireille Darc, was the woman of his life. And his son Anthony confirmed it. Mireille Darc was also present in the lives of Alain's daughter and son, who were born to him from his marriage to a Dutch model and television presenter.

In 2007, Alain Delon and Mireille Darc reunited again, this time on the stage of the Théâtre Marinelli, on the Champs-Elysées, in a play based on Clint Eastwood's famous 1995 film, based on Robert James Waller's best-selling novel, “The Bridges of Madison County.” The play caused great excitement among the actors and the audience and ran for six months.

Happy marriage and documentary filmmaking

In the 1990s, Mireille Darc returned to acting in a number of popular TV movies. But her star as an actress was less bright than before, and then she was offered by French television to move to the other side of the camera. After her partner Pierre died of liver transplant failure, Mireille was asked to direct a documentary about transplants. It was her first documentary, called “Second Life,” in which she told the story of her partner’s struggle against the disease.

From this period until 2015, Mireille directed 13 documentaries on social issues, including: released prisoners (“From the Shadow to the Light”), prostitutes (“Sudden Meeting”), escort girls (“Not on the Mouth”), homeless people (“Tens of Thousands of Women Are Homeless”), cancer (“Doubt and Hope”), porn actresses (“Life with an X”), nuns (“Living with Love”), a response to injustice (“Forgive”), and death (“The Journey into the Unknown”).

Her latest film dealt with women's suffrage and will be released soon. Mireille spent entire days on the street, in people's homes, hospitals, prisons, libraries, reading, researching, speaking, interviewing. She felt great compassion for those who were afflicted by fate, identified with them and helped them as much as she could, but at the same time she knew how to protect herself and not let all the suffering overwhelm and consume her. Mireille never sank into self-destruction. In her most difficult hours, she bravely faced her injuries and illnesses. Mireille always knew how to appreciate the fact that she was able, each time, to get out of bed and continue with her life.

13 documentaries directed by Mireille Darc in which she grew and developed as a human being, as opposed to the 13 films directed by Georges Lautner in which she had fun and enjoyed herself, stepping out of the shadows into the light. Mireille was a popular actress who did not have enough opportunity in the cinema to realize herself in tragic roles, but her documentaries filled the void.

In addition, these were a kind of therapy for her in which she faced and overcame her fears. Professional, sensitive, human films in which we see her looking through books, documents, crossing streets and gardens, hearing her voice from time to time, but most of the light is directed at the people she interviewed and their life stories. In the documentary “Forgive,” the director examines four cases of the victim’s reactions to the abandonment of a partner, to a legal error, to a medical error, to rape.

One of the victims is the mother of her daughter Capucin, who lost her life in a hospital after a fatal mistake that repeated itself once again. Capucin was facing a bone marrow transplant. Instead of injecting her with 8 milligrams of a substance intended to prevent transplant rejection, the nurse injected her with 8 grams of it. The staff did not understand the patient's reaction and ordered another injection. Once again, the girl received the wrong dose, a thousand times more than was necessary. Contrary to expectations, Capucin's mother is grateful to the care team, who were indeed dedicated and loving. She forgave completely. Not forgiving, she said, means imprisoning oneself in the position of a victim. Forgiving, on the other hand, means freeing the guilty from feelings of guilt and letting them move on with their lives.

A rich professional life and also a meeting that changed and reshaped Mireille's life again. Mireille defined her third partner as an "unexpected gift". For the last twenty-two years of her life, Mireille Darc lived very happily with the interior designer, Pascal Despres. She adopted his children and then his grandchildren and he himself became a close friend of Alain Delon, without any feelings of jealousy.

At Mireille Darc's funeral procession, which took place on September 1, 2017, the two supported each other. After the funeral service inSaint-Sulpice Church, Mireille was buried in the Montparnasse cemetery, next to the graves of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin's daughter, Kathy Berry. Coincidence: Mireille was not a singer but, like Jeanne Moreau and Brigitte Bardot, sang several songs, two of them conducted by Serge Gainsbourg: “Open quotation marks, close quotation marks”

And “Helicopter”:

Mireille Darc, whose compassionate heart once beat extremely strongly, and not only because of the pacemaker, supported humanitarian organizations, including an organization that helps children with heart diseases from all over the world undergo appropriate treatments and an organization that helps the elderly in hospital. “I am a ball of love,” she told journalist Laurent Delaus on the program, Un jour, un destin, dedicated to her.

Of all the figures I researched for the “Francophiles Anonymous” website, if I may end on a personal note, my greatest admiration is for Mireille Darc. I was also moved by the personalities of many other celebrities, but Mireille Darc particularly struck me with her wisdom, nobility, honesty, and natural generosity. Mireille Darc is a role model and an encouragement.

Her writer friend Catherine Pancol She said that one day, when the two of them were sitting in a cafe, a girl approached them and introduced herself as a child from an institution. She always keeps a picture of Mirei in her bag, and whenever she is going through a difficult moment, she thinks of Mirei and is encouraged. Mirei gave her her private cell phone number in case she wanted to talk to her again. A small but big episode.