Acting

Mireille Mathieu

Born 1946-07-22 · Avignon, Vaucluse, France

Mireille Mathieu (born 22 July 1946), is a French singer. She has recorded over 1200 songs in eleven languages, with more than 122 million records sold worldwide. Mireille Mathieu was born on 22 July 1946 in Avignon, France, the eldest daughter of a family of fourteen children; the youngest brother was born after she moved to Paris. Her father Roger and his family were native to Avignon, while her mother Marcelle-Sophie (née Poirier) was from Dunkirk. She arrived in Avignon in 1944 as a refugee from World War II after her grandmother had died, and her mother went missing. Roger, with his father Arcade, ran the family stonemason shop just outside the Saint-Véran cemetery main gate. The Mathieu family have been stonemasons for four generations. Today the shop is named Pompes Funèbres Mathieu-Mardoyan, owned and managed by her sister Réjane's family. The Mathieu family lived in poverty, with a huge improvement in their living conditions in 1954, when subsidized housing was built in the Malpeigné quarter near the cemetery. Then again in 1961 they moved to a large tenement in the Croix des Oiseaux quarter southeast of the city. Roger had once dreamed of becoming a singer, but his father Arcade disapproved, inspiring him to have one of his children learn to sing with him in church. Mireille included her father's operatic voice on her 1968 Christmas album, where it was mixed in with the Minuit Chrétiens song. Mireille's first paid performance before an audience, at age four, was rewarded with a lollipop when she sang on Christmas Eve 1950 during Midnight Mass. A defining moment was seeing Édith Piaf sing on television. Mireille performed poorly in elementary school because of dyslexia, requiring an extra year to graduate. She was born left-handed, and her teachers used a ruler to strike her hand each time she was caught writing with it. She became right-handed, although her left hand remains quite animated while singing. She has a fantastic memory, and never uses a prompter on stage. Abandoning higher education, at age 14 (1961), and after moving to Croix des Oiseaux, she began work in a local factory in Montfavet (a suburb southeast of town) where she helped with the family income and paid for her singing lessons. Popular at work, she often sang songs at lunch, or while working. Like her parents, she is a short woman at 1.52 m (5 feet) in height. Her sister Monique, born on 8 July 1947, began work at the same factory a few months later. Both were given bicycles on credit to commute with, making for very long days, and many bad memories of riding against the mistral winds. The factory went out of business, so Mireille and two sisters (Monique, and Christiane) became youth counselors at a summer camp before her rise to fame, a summer where she had her fortune told by Tarot cards by an old Gypsy woman, saying she would soon mingle with kings and queens. ... Source: Article "Mireille Mathieu" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.

Acting credits

6.5

55 years ago, on October 1 1968, the first brand advertising spot appeared on the French television screen. Over the next three decades, thousands of creative little films would seduce and build our collective memory. Kitschy or cult spots, humor, slogans, music, stars, gimmicks, grand spectacle or sex appeal: during its golden age, how did advertising convince? Thierry Ardisson has brought together almost 400 advertising clips to relive the era of the conquest of minds and wallets.

L'Âge d'or de la pub

2023

7.0

The co-founder of the Gamma press agency, Raymond Depardon, created this documentary of press photographers in Paris and their subjects by following the photographers around for one month, in October, 1980. In-between long hours waiting for a celebrity to emerge from a restaurant or a hotel, boredom immediately switches to fast action as the cameras click and roll when the person appears. The reaction to the gaggle of photographers is as varied as the people they often literally chase all around town. While some of the celebrities, such as Jacques Chirac who was mayor of Paris at the time, are perceived as comical caricatures, others are shown simply going about ordinary pursuits - including Catherine Deneuve, Gene Kelly, and Jean-Luc Godard.

Reporters

1981

7.3

Released from prison under a New Year amnesty, a criminal tries to pick up the threads of a life changed not only by his daring plan to rob a jewelry store in out-of-season Cannes, but also by a very special someone he met there.

Happy New Year

1973

50 ans de Numéro Un - Les Carpentier poster

5.0

No synopsis available yet.

50 ans de Numéro Un - Les Carpentier

2025

La TV des 70's : Quand Giscard était président poster

7.2

In May 1974, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing became President of the Republic and wanted to bring about a new era of modernity. One of his first decisions was to break up the ORTF with the creation of three new television channels: TF1, Antenne 2 and FR3. Three new public channels but autonomous and competing. It is a race for the audience which is engaged then, and from now on the channels will make the war! This competition will give birth to a real golden age for television programs, with variety shows in the forefront. The stars of the song are going to invade the living rooms of the French for their biggest pleasure. This unedited documentary tells the story of the metamorphosis of this television of the early 1970s, between freedom of tone, scandals, political intrigues and programs that have become mythical.

La TV des 70's : Quand Giscard était président

2022

Les Enfoirés - Les Enfoirés en chœur de 1985 à aujourd'hui poster

8.0

No synopsis available yet.

Les Enfoirés - Les Enfoirés en chœur de 1985 à aujourd'hui

2014

Song chronicle of France in the 60s. The film introduces the work of famous French chansonnier singers.

France, Song

1969

5.7

Marco Mazzetti, a driving instructor, lives with his wife Irène and their young son. After a series of nauseous dizzy spells he goes to the doctor and discovers that he is four-months pregnant. Marco then becomes internationally famous.

A Slightly Pregnant Man

1973

Mireille Mathieu - Singen, nur singen poster

7.0

Mireille Mathieu, along with Edith Piaf and Dalida, is part of France's national cultural heritage. The documentary shows the tension between the celebrated and at the same time banished, the ambassador of France in the world, who appears only rarely in her own homeland. Why is Mireille Mathieu, the unusual star, so divisive?

Mireille Mathieu - Singen, nur singen

2021

Les Enfoirés 1998 - Enfoirés en cœur poster

7.6

No synopsis available yet.

Les Enfoirés 1998 - Enfoirés en cœur

1998

5.7

A successful young journalist goes to a small industrial city in order to understand the written complaints of a certain girl. When he met the author of the letters and the girl whom she had slandered, he didn't immediately understand the complexity of the situation and the measure of responsibility to those whom he was obliged to protect...