Mylène Demongeot

Mylène Demongeot (born Marie-Hélène Demongeot; 29 September 1935 – 1 December 2022) was a French film, television and theatre actress and author with a career spanning almost seven decades and more than 100 credits in French, Italian and English speaking productions. 

She is best known as Milady de Winter in The Three Musketeers (1961). She also has a cult following based on the Fantomas trilogy, as Hélène Gurn opposite Louis de Funès and Jean Marais: Fantômas (1964), Fantômas Unleashed (1965) and Fantômas Against Scotland Yard (1967). A "veteran of cinema" who started as one of the blond sex symbols of the 1950s and 1960s, she managed to avoid typecasting by exploring many film genres including thrillers, westerns, comedies, swashbucklers, period films and even pepla, such as Romulus and the Sabines (1961) and Gold for the Caesars (1963).

Demongeot was also nominated for the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles for her portrayal of Abigail Williams in The Crucible (1957) which also garnered her best actress at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, and was twice nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the César Awards for 36 Quai des Orfèvres (2004) and French California (2006).

Early life

Demongeot was born in Nice, Southern France and is the daughter of Alfred Jean Demongeot, born on 30 January 1897 in Nice (son of Marie Joseph Marcel Demongeot, career soldier, and Clotilde Faussonne di Clavesana, Italian comtesse) and Claudia Troubnikova, born 17 May 1904 In Kharkiv (Ukraine, Russian Empire).

She has a half-brother, Leonid Ivantov, born in Kharbin (China) on 17 December 1925, from the first marriage of her mother.

Career

In the United States, she co-starred with David Niven in Otto Preminger's Bonjour Tristesse (1958) and in the United Kingdom she appeared in several comedies, including It's A Wonderful World (1956) and Upstairs and Downstairs (1959).

Between September 2013 and June 2014, she was a columnist member of the radio show Les Grosses Têtes by Philippe Bouvard on RTL.

In 2017, she was made Knight of the Légion d'Honneur by ethologist and neurologist Boris Cyrulnik and Commander of the Ordre des Arts et de Lettres in 2007 under the French Republic.

Personal life

Demongeot was married to director Marc Simenon from 1968 until his death in 1999. She resided in a country house in Mayenne surrounded by animals. She was a member of the honor committee of the Association pour le droit de mourir dans la dignité [fr] (English: Right to Die with Dignity - ADMD).

Demongeot was the victim of a financial scam set up by her account manager who stole €2 million from her, money which was used to make loans to numerous high-profile personalities, like Isabelle Adjani, Alexandre Arcady or Samy Naceri. Justice took hold of the case in June 2012 and two banks were found guilty. She recounts these years of proceedings in her book Très chers escrocs… (2019, English: Very Dear Crooks…).

Demongeot died of primary peritoneal cancer on 1 December 2022, at the age of 87.

Among the quotes on or from her colleagues, are found:

• Brigitte Bardot wrote in one of her books: "Mylène was my little cinema sister, then became my combat sister, a libra like me, she has always loved animals, even going so far as to save a baby lion from set that she brought back to the hotel which hosted her during the filming".
• Arthur Miller wrote: "Mylene Demongeot was [in The Crucible] truly beautiful, and so bursting with real sexuality as to become a generalized force whose effects on the community transcended herself."
• Demongeot met Gary Cooper at the opening of the first escalator to be installed in a cinema, at the Rex Theatre in Paris, on 7 June 1957. She declared in a filmed interview: "Gary Cooper was sublime, there I have to say, now he, was part of the stars, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, John Wayne, those great Americans who I've met really were unbelievable guys, there aren't any like them anymore."
• On David Niven she said in a filmed interview: "He was like a lord, he was part of those great actors who were extraordinary like Dirk Bogarde, individuals with lots of class, elegance and humour. I only saw David get angry once. Preminger had discharged him for the day but eventually asked to get him. I said, sir, you had discharged him, he left for Deauville to gamble at the casino. So we rented a helicopter so they immediately went and grabbed him. Two hours later, he was back, full of rage. There I saw David lose his British phlegm, his politeness and class. It was royal. [Laughs]."

Bibliography

• Demongeot, Mylène (September 2001). Tiroirs secrets. Paris: Le Pré aux Clercs. ISBN 2-84228-131-4.