MIREILLE DARC

(15 May 1938 - 28 August 2017)

The French actress Mireille Darc (birth name Mireille Algroz) has died of a heart condition aged 79. She studied in Toulon and then worked in the theatre in Paris. Her first film was Trapped by Fear (1960) with Jean-Paul Belmondo, followed by Please, Not Now directed by Roger Vadim, of Bardot fame and to whom Darc was compared. She was an attractive woman and her looks as well as her acting abilities were mainly used in genre movies such as sex comedies and crime thrillers, many of which never came to the UK. The director Georges Lautner cast her in over a dozen films. In 1967 she was in Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend, a departure for her to work with a New Wave director rather than the more traditionalist filmmakers. It was arguably her best film. She was in (briefly) the 1967 Casino Royale and also Ken Annakin’s Monte Carlo or Bust, mainly as eye candy, Jacques Deray’s Borsalino with Belmondo again, while Yves Robert’s The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe was a global hit. She continued to make films with André Cayatte, Michel Boisrond, Edouard Molinaro and Alain Delon, with whom she had a long relationship before marrying her husband Pascal Desprez. Her last feature was in 1986 after which she directed television documentaries. Mireille Darc was awarded the Légion d’honneur in 2006.

MICHAEL DARVELL