Yvette Mimieux

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Yvette Carmen Mimieux<ref name=TCM>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> (January 8, 1942 – January 18, 2022)Template:Efn was an American film and television actress who was a major star of the 1960s and 1970s. Her breakout role was in The Time Machine (1960). She was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards during her career.<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Early life

Mimieux was born in Los Angeles on January 8, 1942, to René Mimieux, who was half French and half German, and Maria Montemayor, who was Mexican.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Library of Congress">Template:Cite journal</ref> Mimieux had two siblings, a sister, Gloria, and a brother, Edouardo.<ref name="Library of Congress" />

Her career was launched after talent manager Jim Byron happened to meet her and suggested she become an actress.<ref>"Under Hedda's Hat: The Mystery of Yvette Mimieux", Chicago Tribune, June 9, 1963. pg. H36.</ref> Her first acting appearances were in episodes of the television shows Yancy Derringer and One Step Beyond, both in 1959, at the age of 17.

Career

MGM

Mimieux appeared in George Pal's film version of H. G. Wells's 1895 novel The Time Machine (1960) starring Rod Taylor, in which she played the character Weena. It was made for MGM, which put her under long-term contract. Her first film was Platinum High School (1960), a low-budget teen crime drama produced by Albert Zugsmith for MGM starring Mickey Rooney and released two months before The Time Machine.<ref>Joe Hyams, "Yvette steals the show: A year ago she was on our cover. Now look at the girl--she's had two movies, five proposals and starred at the Debs' Ball! Actors are out!", Los Angeles Times, December 6, 1959, pg. J21</ref> Her performance in Platinum High School earned her a 1960 Golden Globe Awards nomination for "New Star Of The Year - Actress".<ref name=":0"/>

Mimieux guest-starred in an episode of Mr Lucky, then was one of several leads in the highly popular teen comedy-drama Where the Boys Are (1960), along with Dolores Hart, Paula Prentiss, and Connie Francis. MGM put Mimieux in the ingénue role in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1961), an expensive flop.<ref>"Yvette Mimieux Signed: Gets Role in 'Four Horsemen of Apocalypse'", The New York Times, August 12, 1960, pg. 11.</ref> Arthur Freed wanted to team her and George Hamilton in a remake of The Clock, but it was not made.<ref>Hedda Hopper, "Mimieux, Hamilton Teamed: Film Is Remake of 'The Clock'"], Los Angeles Times, June 7, 1961, pg. B10.</ref>

Mimieux had a central role in the romantic drama Light in the Piazza (1962), playing a mentally disabled girl. The film paired her romantically with Hamilton. The film lost money, but was well regarded critically. She later said: "I suppose I have a soulful quality. I was often cast as a wounded person, the 'sensitive' role."<ref name="soul">Megan Rosenfeld, "The Mystique of Actress Yvette Mimieux", The Washington Post, November 29, 1979, pg. D13.</ref>

In 1962, Mimieux was slated for a role in A Summer Affair at MGM, but it was not made.<ref>Hedda Hopper, "Yvette Mimieux to Do 'Summer Affair'", Los Angeles Times, February 23, 1962, pg. C16.</ref>

Mimieux had a small part in Pal's The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1963), another commercial disappointment. Later that year, she appeared in Diamond Head (1963) with Charlton Heston. Mimieux went to United Artists for Toys in the Attic, based on the play by Lillian Hellman and co-starring Geraldine Page and Dean Martin. At MGM, Mimieux guest-starred on two episodes of Dr. Kildare alongside Richard Chamberlain in 1964. She played a surfer suffering from epilepsy, a performance that was much acclaimed<ref>"Yvette Mimieux in Television Debut", Los Angeles Times, September 5, 1963, pg. C12.</ref> and led to a 1965 Golden Globe nomination for "Best Actress In A Television Series".<ref name=":0"/>

Mimieux made a cameo as herself in Looking for Love (1964) starring Connie Francis, her costar from Where the Boys Are. She also played Richard Chamberlain's wife in Joy in the Morning (1965), a romantic melodrama.Template:Citation needed

Post-MGM

Mimieux was in a Western with Max von Sydow for 20th Century Fox, The Reward (1965); the Disney comedy Monkeys, Go Home! (1967); and the heist film The Caper of the Golden Bulls (1967).<ref>Hedda Hopper, "Yvette Mimieux's Got a Secret", Los Angeles Times, April 11, 1965, pg. M4.</ref>

Mimieux did The Desperate Hours (1967) for TV and was reunited with Rod Taylor in the MGM war movie Dark of the Sun (1968). In 1968, she narrated a classical music concert at the Hollywood Bowl.<ref>"Foster Conducts Program at Bowl", by Arlen, Walter. Los Angeles Times, August 15, 1968, pg. E-24.</ref>

In 1968, Mimieux was top-billed in the sex comedy Three in the Attic, a hit for AIP starring Christopher Jones,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and then appeared in the critically acclaimed 1969 movie The Picasso Summer alongside Albert Finney. In 1970, she was the female lead in The Delta Factor, an action film co-starring Christopher George.Template:Citation needed

Television

File:Hit Lady Yvette Mimieux 1974.jpg
Mimieux in Hit Lady (1974)

Mimieux had one of the leads in The Most Deadly Game (1970–1971), a short-lived television series from Aaron Spelling. She replaced Inger Stevens, who had been slated to star,— but died one month before production began.<ref>"Yvette Mimieux in Cast of Deadly Game", Los Angeles Times, May 19, 1970, pg. F-18.</ref> For this role, Mimieux was nominated for the 1971 Golden Globe Award for Best Television Actress — Drama Series.<ref name=":0"/>

Around 1971, Mimieux had a business selling Haitian products and studied archaeology; she traveled several months of each year.<ref>Judy Klemesrud, "Actress Mixes Altruism and Business", New York Times, September 23, 1970, pg. 54.</ref> After making the television movies Death Takes a Holiday (1971) and Black Noon (1971), she sued her agent for not providing her with movie work despite having taken her money.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Mimieux was an air hostess in MGM's hostage thriller Skyjacked (1972), starring Charlton Heston and James Brolin<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and was in the Fox science-fiction film The Neptune Factor (1973).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

By the early 1970s, Mimieux was unhappy with the roles offered to actresses:

The women they [male screenwriters] write are all one-dimensional. They have no complexity in their lives. It's all surface. There's nothing to play. They're either sex objects or vanilla pudding.<ref name="mim">Template:Cite news</ref>

Mimieux had been writing for several years before this film, mostly journalism and short stories. She had the idea for a story about a Pirandello-like theme:

the study of a woman, the difference between what she appears to be and what she is: appearance vs reality...[the more I thought about the character] the more I wanted to play her. Here was the kind of nifty, multifaceted part I'd been looking for. So instead of a short story, I wrote it as a film.<ref name="mim" />

Mimieux wrote a thriller, which she took to producers Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg, who then produced it for ABC as a television film. It aired as Hit Lady (1974), in which Mimieux played the title character.<ref name="mim"/>

File:Yvette Mimieux - still.jpg
Mimieux in Template:Circa

In 1975, Mimieux starred in The Legend of Valentino (as Rudolph Valentino's second wife, Natacha Rambova), and in the Canadian thriller Journey into Fear, a remake of a 1943 Orson Welles movie. In 1976, Mimieux made a pilot for a television sitcom based on Bell, Book and Candle, but it was not picked up.Template:Citation needed

Later movies

Mimieux played a falsely imprisoned woman pursued by corrupt law enforcement in the crime drama Jackson County Jail (1976) with Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Carradine for New World Pictures, which was a box-office hit.

Mimieux appeared in such horror-oriented TV movies as Snowbeast (1977), Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell (1978), and Disaster on the Coastliner (1979). She also appeared in the TV movies Ransom for Alice! (1977) and Outside Chance (1978).

Later, she co-starred in the first PG-rated Walt Disney Productions feature, the science fiction film The Black Hole (1979). She had the lead in Circle of Power (1981).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Mimieux appeared in the TV movie Forbidden Love (1982) and Night Partners (1983) and guest-starred on The Love Boat and Lime Street. She made Obsessive Love (1984), a television film about a female stalker which she co-wrote and co-produced:

There are few enough films going these days, and there are three or four women who are offered all the good parts. Of course I could play a lot of awful parts that are too depressing to contemplate.... [Television] is not the love affair I have with film, but television can be a playground for interesting ideas. I love wild, baroque, slightly excessive theatrical ideas, and because television needs so much material, there's a chance to get some of those odd ideas done.<ref>JOHN O'CONNOR. "Obsessive Love, Movie With Yvette Mimieux", New York Times, October 2, 1984, pg. C18.</ref><ref>Farber, Stephen. "MIMIEUX PRODUCES A MOVIE FOR TV", New York Times, October 1, 1984.</ref>

Mimieux had the lead in the short-lived TV series Berrenger's (1985) and a supporting role in the TV movie The Fifth Missile (1986). She guest-starred in a TV movie Perry Mason: The Case of the Desperate Deception (1990). Her last film was a supporting role in Lady Boss (1992).<ref name=TCM />

Personal life and death

At age 17, Mimieux wed Evan Harland Engber on December 19, 1959, but kept the marriage secret for almost two years.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> She was married for a second time to film director Stanley Donen from 1972 until their divorce in 1985.<ref name=TCM /> Her last marriage was to Howard F. Ruby, chairman emeritus and co-founder of Oakwood Worldwide, the owner of the Oakwood Apartments complexes.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Mimieux died 10 days after her 80th birthday at her home in Los Angeles on January 18, 2022.Template:Efn

Filmography

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Television work

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Recordings

  • The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm 1962 (MGM Records), as The Dancing Princess
  • Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil (Les Fleurs Du Mal) 1968 (Connoisseur Society), reading excerpts of Cyril Scott's 1909 translation with music by Ali Akbar Khan

References

Notes

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Citations

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