Mylène Demongeot

Acting

Mylène Demongeot

Born 1935-09-29 · Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France

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 seven decades and more than 100 credits in French, Italian, English and Japanese speaking productions. Demongeot became a star at age 21 with her portrayal of Abigail Williams in The Crucible (1957) which garnered her a BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles nomination and the best actress prize at the socialist Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Some other notable film roles include Elsa in Otto Preminger's Bonjour Tristesse (1958), alongside Deborah Kerr and David Niven, and as Milady de Winter in Les Trois Mousquetaires (1961). 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) opposite Roger Moore or Gold for the Caesars (1963). Demongeot 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). Thirty years later, she starred again in another one of France's most successful comedy trilogies as Madame Pic in Fabien Onteniente's Camping (2006), Camping 2 (2010) and Camping 3 (2016). She was twice nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the César Awards for 36 Quai des Orfèvres (2004) and French California (2006). In 2007, she was made a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et de Lettres of the French Republic. In 2017, she was inducted into the Légion d'Honneur by ethologist and neurologist Boris Cyrulnik, with the rank of Chevalier. She remained popular until her passing from peritoneal cancer. At the time of her death, she was starring in Thomas Gilou's film Maison de retraite (2022) alongside Gérard Depardieu, one of the biggest box office hits of 2022 in France. Through an Élysée Palace official tribune, President Emmanuel Macron paid a long tribute to her which included : "we salute the career of a great figure in the French Seventh Art, who knew how to shine in all its genres to move all French people". Demongeot was born in September 1935 in Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, the daughter and only child of Alfred Jean Demongeot, born Nice, 30 January 1897 (himself the son of Marie Joseph Marcel Demongeot, career soldier, and Clotilde Faussonne di Clavesana, an Italian contessa) and Claudia Troubnikova, born 17 May 1904 in Kharkiv (Ukraine, Russian Empire). Her parents, both actors themselves, had met in Shanghai, China, where her half-brother, Léonid Ivantov, from the first marriage of her mother, was born, in Harbin on 17 December 1923. Like hundreds of other major European figures of stage and screen, she trained at the 'Cours Simon' in Paris where her classmates included Jean-Pierre Cassel, Claude Berri and Guy Bedos. She was a classically trained pianist and her first ambition was of becoming a professional. ... Source: Article "Mylène Demongeot" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Acting credits

Fantômas: A Thoroughly Modern Villain poster
7.1

The story of Fantômas, the first villain of modernity, from his birth in 1911 as a novel character to his contemporary vicissitudes, passing through Louis Feuillade, André Hunebelle, surrealism and Moscow.

Fantômas: A Thoroughly Modern Villain

2022

Fantomas Unleashed poster
6.7

In the second episode of the trilogy Fantômas kidnaps distinguished scientist professor Marchand with the aim to develop a super weapon that will enable him to menace the world. Fantômas is also planning to abduct a second scientist, professor Lefebvre.

Fantomas Unleashed

1965

Bonjour Tristesse poster
6.7

A spoiled teenager spends the summer at the French Riviera with her rich, widower, playboy father, but when his old flame resurfaces, she resolves to keep her frivolous lifestyle at all costs.

Bonjour Tristesse

1958

Fantomas vs. Scotland Yard poster
6.7

In the third and final episode of the trilogy, Fantômas imposes a head tax on the rich, threatening to kill those who do not comply.

Fantomas vs. Scotland Yard

1967

Signé Furax poster
5.0

The notorious and mysterious criminal Furax steals France's famous monuments, replacing them with replicas.

Signé Furax

1981

Fantomas poster
6.8

Fantômas is a man of many disguises. He uses maquillage as a weapon. He can impersonate anyone using an array of masks and can create endless confusion by constantly changing his appearance.

Fantomas

1964

Les Scandaleuses poster
8.5

Béatrice Dalle, Lio, Brigitte Fontaine, Corinne Masiero, Aïssa Maïga, Virginie Despentes, Maria Schneider, Gisèle Halimi, Juliette Gréco, and Adèle Haenel—these women lived on their own terms, defying conventions and embracing lives often deemed "scandalous." Labeled frivolous, hysterical, or simply too free and too loud, they faced criticism yet used controversy as a force for change, challenging norms and advancing women's rights. This documentary retraces seventy years of their bold and unconventional journeys, telling the story of the fearless women who shaped history and fought for a more equal world.

Les Scandaleuses

2024

Retirement Home poster
5.9

A story of friendship between a young convict who is forced to work in a retirement home and a group of crazy old people. Together they organize their escape.

Retirement Home

2022

Tender Scoundrel poster
5.2

Tony Maréchal is a professional seducer. Having conquered countless women, proclaims that there is none that can resist his charm. To prove this makes a difficult challenge: to seduce baroness Minna von Strasshofer.

Tender Scoundrel

1966

The Midwife poster
6.1

Claire is a midwife and has devoted her life to others. At a moment when she is preoccupied by the imminent closure of the maternity clinic where she works, her life is further turned upside down when Béatrice, her father's former mistress, turns up on the scene. Béatrice is a capricious and selfish woman, Claire's exact opposite.

The Midwife

2017

36th Precinct poster
6.9

In Paris, two cops are competing for the vacant job of chief of police, in the middle of the search for a gang of violent thieves. The movie is directed by Olivier Marchal, a former police officer who spent 12 years with the French police before creating this story, taken in part from real events of the 1980s.

36th Precinct

2004

School for Love poster
5.1

Sophie and Elis, two young women at the Conservatory of Vienna. vie for the affection of head singing teacher Walter.

School for Love

1955

Women Are Weak poster
5.6

A playboy is pursued by three women seeking romance.

Women Are Weak

1959

The Hideout poster
3.7

A jewel thief hides his loot in a WELL while escaping. He returns several years later only to find there is a Resort on the site and the well is the centerpiece of the place. He then has to find a way to retrieve his haul.

The Hideout

1971

The Giant of Marathon poster
5.2

A Greek soldier leads the fight against an invading Persian army.

The Giant of Marathon

1959

La Californie poster
5.0

Mirko and Stefan, Serbian refugees, move to the French Riviera. There they meet Maguy who lives in a luxurious mansion up the hill above Cannes with an odd group of friends.

La Californie

2006

Ménage poster
6.6

A bisexual petty criminal named Bob encounters a married couple arguing in a bar. Bob breaks up the fight and proceeds to seduce first the wife and then the husband. Then Bob teaches the couple how to be burglars and they join him in his criminal exploits.

Ménage

1986

Oscar and the Lady in Pink poster
6.5

Listening in to a conversation between his doctor and parents, 10-year-old Oscar learns what nobody has the courage to tell him. He only has a few weeks to live. Furious, he refuses to speak to anyone except straight-talking Rose, the lady in pink he meets on the hospital stairs. As Christmas approaches, Rose uses her fantastical experiences as a professional wrestler, her imagination, wit and charm to allow Oscar to live life and love to the full, in the company of his friends Pop Corn, Einstein, Bacon and childhood sweetheart Peggy Blue. Written by American Film Market

Oscar and the Lady in Pink

2009

The Witches of Salem poster
6.9

Salem 1692. The young Abigail, seduced and abandoned by John Proctor, accuses John's wife of being a witch in revenge. A series of tragic trials soon befall Salem as fear and suspicion blur the lines of reality.

The Witches of Salem

1957

Be Beautiful and Shut Up poster
5.6

A beautiful 18-year-old orphan escapes from a reformatory and hooks up with a gang of jewel smugglers, and decides on a life of crime. However, she falls for and marries a policeman, putting a crimp in her criminal career.

Be Beautiful and Shut Up

1958

Victoire poster
3.0

Victoire is sweet, sensitive, nice and understanding. She leads an existence which doesn't leave her much time to wonder.

Victoire

2004

Doctor in Distress poster
6.3

"Doctor in Distress" is the fifth of the seven films in the "Doctor" series, and focuses on Sir Lancelot Spratt, Simon Sparrow's old teacher and sometimes nemesis. When the eternal bachelor Sir Lancelot injures his back and falls in love with his physiotherapist Iris Marchant, he becomes very distressed and turns to Simon for help. Simon, who now is a senior doctor at fictional Hampden Cross Hospital and hopelessly in love with aspiring actress Delia, sends him to a nature cure clinic in a vain attempt to help him lose weight, but Sir Lancelot can't get Iris off his mind and has her followed, first by a private investigator and eventually by himself. When he finally proposes, she rejects him and marries an old army major, which distresses Sir Lancelot even more.

Doctor in Distress

1963

La Tête haute poster
8.0

No synopsis available yet.

La Tête haute

2005

Copacabana Palace poster
5.0

For three days at the Copacabana Palace in Rio de Janeiro, amorous cross-fertilizations are intertwined with petty tricks against the backdrop of the famous carnival festivities. Three (sympathetic) accomplices are beaten to a punch in the hotel vault; three charming stewardesses are looking for entertainment, but their three Carioca host, musicians Tom Jobim, Luiz Bonfá, and João Gilberto, are married; a man, separated from his wife, wants to catch her in the act of adultery.

Copacabana Palace

1962