Demongeot, Mylène

(1936- )

   Actress and producer. Mylène Demongeot was born Marie-Hélène Demongeot in Nice. She studied acting under René Simon and Marie Ventura, and later became a model. She made her screen debut at the age of sixteen in Léonide Moguy's Les Enfants de l'amour (1953), and subsequently appeared in Marc Allégret's Futures vedettes (1955). She was initially viewed as a sex symbol, and her role in Allégret's Sois belle et tais-toi (1958) was therefore rather interesting from a feminist standpoint.

   Demongeot's breakthrough performance was in Raymond Rouleau's 1957 film Les Sorcières de Salem, in which she played Abigail Williams. Some of her other memorable early roles were in Otto Preminger's Bonjour, tristesse (1958), Michel Boisrond's Faibles femmes (1959), Bernard Borderie's Les Trois mousquetaires: La vengeance de Milady (1961) and Les Trois mousquetaires: Les ferrets de la reine (1961), Michel Deville's L'Appartement des filles (1963) and A cause, à cause d'une femme (1963), and Jean Becker's Tendre Voyou (1966). She played alongside Jean Marais in André Hunébelle's remake of Louis Feuillade's Fantômas (1964), and in the sequels Fantômas se déchaine (1965) and Fantômas contre Scotland Yard (1966).

   Demongeot also ventured into British cinema with parts in Val Guest's It's a Wonderful World(1956), Ralph Thomas's Upstairs and Downstairs (1959), and Roy Ward Baker's The Singer Not the Song (1961), and into Italian cinema with roles in Mauro Bolognini's La Notte brava (1959) and Dino Risi's Un Amore a Roma (1960). In 1974 Demongeot acted in her husband Marc Simenon's film Par le sang des autres. She later appeared in his Signé Furax (1981). With Simenon, she leads the production company Kangourou Films. She has continued her film career into the twenty-first century and was nominated for a César for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Olivier Marchal's 36 Quai des orfèvres in 2005. She also played in Bertrand Blier's Tenue de soirée (1986), Liliane de Kermadec's La Piste du télégraphe (1994), Stéphanie Murat's Victoire (2000), and Fabien Onteniente's Camping (2006).

   Historical Dictionary of French Cinema by Dayna Oscherwitz & Mary Ellen Higgins