Mireille Mathieu
Encyclopedia
Mireille Mathieu (born 22 July 1946) is a French chanteuse, and pop singer. Hailed in the French press as the successor to Édith Piaf
, she has achieved great commercial success, recording over 1200 songs in nine different languages, with more than 120 million records sold worldwide.
, Vaucluse
département, France, the eldest daughter of a family of fourteen children. The youngest brother born after she had moved to Paris. Her father Roger (ʁɔ.ʒe) was from Avignon, and her mother Marcelle-Sophie Poirier came to Avignon from Dunkirk in 1944, as a refugee from World War II. Roger, with his father Arcade, ran a stonemason shop outside the Saint-Véran Cemetery in Avignon, which is still in business today. The family lived in poverty, and were dependent on government housing.
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's first paid performance before an audience, at age four, was rewarded with a lollipop. Another defining moment was seeing Édith Piaf sing on television.
Mireille performed poorly in elementary school due to dyslexia
, requiring an extra year to graduate. Born left handed, 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, she began work in a local factory in Montfavet
at age fourteen (1960), where she helped with the family income and paid for singing lessons. Very popular at work, she often sang songs at lunch, or while working. Like her parents, she is a short woman at five-feet in height. Her sister Monique (mo.nikə) began work at the same factory a few months later, both given bicycles on credit to commute with, making for very long days. The factory went out of business, so Mireille and her two oldest sisters became youth counselors for the summer 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.
Mireille is Roman Catholic, and her patron Saint
is Saint Rita
. Saint Rita is the Saint for the Impossible. Mireille's paternal grandmother Germaine assured her that Saint Rita was the one to pray to for hopeless cases. Beyond religion, like many artists, she is unabashed about superstition and luck. She has a terrible stage fright, and can be seen making the sign of the cross
before moving out on stage.
." Her win got her a pre-audition
on the televised talent show Jeu de la Chance in Paris, on which amateur singers competed for audience votes. Her participation and train fare, arranged by Raoul Colombe, the deputy mayor of Avignon. Accompanied by a pianist and dressed in black, like Piaf, she sang two Piaf songs to the audition judges and left dispirited. Non-French cannot hear it, but Parisians
at the studio made fun of her Provençal accent, and her dyslexia scrambled words. For example, her sister and current manager, Monique is called "Matite" because Mireille couldn't pronounce "petite" as a child.
During a 1965 summer gala, added to the Enrico Macias
concert by Raoul Colombe (her first manager), she met her future manager Johnny Stark. Mireille and her father both thought he was an American based on his mannerisms, and they nicknamed him l'Américain. Stark had worked with singers such as Yves Montand
, and the relationship between him and Mathieu is often described as resembling that between Colonel Tom Parker
and Elvis Presley
. Stark is credited with making her a star and the successor to Piaf. By 1968, under his careful management, she was France's most popular singer.
In the middle of her seven consecutive performances on Télé-Dimanche she performed a concert at the Paris Olympia
, which propelled her to stardom. She signed with Bruno Coquatrix
, the owner of the Olympia, on 20 December, and performed the only three Piaf songs she had memorized, two days later. She was hailed in the press, in France and abroad, as the "Sparrow from Avignon," in reference to Piaf's nickname "Sparrow of the Streets." The Olympia performance convinced a skeptical Paul Mauriat
to work with Mireille, and song writer André Pascal
joined forces to develop her into a successful act. Pascal wrote Mon crédo, Viens dans ma rue, La première étoile and many other hit songs for her. Her first album En Direct de L'Olympia
– on the Barclay label
– was released in 1966. Highly acclaimed, along with the singles and EP
's from it, the album made her a star outside of France.
A regular early contributor of material was Francis Lai
, who wrote two songs: C'est ton nom, and Un homme et une femme for her first album, and often accompanied her with his accordion
on television. Her first record was recorded in the EMI studios, with Paul Mauriat's band. Mathieu's success led her record company, Barclay, to claim that they controlled 40% of the French pop disk market.
Mireille spent all of 1966 and 1967 touring. It was during a car ride to another concert that Stark advised Mireille that she was finally debt free, and worth more than a million francs. She had always prayed that she could get her family out of poverty, but the touring and singing were much more important at the time. In her autobiography, she said her first major purchases were a vehicle for her father's business, and a large home for her parents and siblings. Most important, a telephone, so her parents no longer had to go to the pharmacy
to talk to her in Paris. Her one regret was that she was unable to see her grandmother Germaine in the hospital before she died during these tours.
Following her performance at the London Palladium, her French cover of Engelbert Humperdinck
's "The Last Waltz
" (La dernière valse) generated much publicity in Great Britain and was a hit even though the original had been number one only a few months previously. She also toured Canada and the United States where she appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show
and the Danny Kaye Show
. While on a visit to Hollywood, she met Elvis Presley
, and in Las Vegas
sang with Dean Martin
and Frank Sinatra
.
and the global lack of interest in non-English popular music during her most profitable years, she remained a popular artist in France and other countries. Many thousands of fans have met her before and after performances for autographs and well wishes over the years, and the common refrain is how well she treats her fans. She easily interacts with the public.
While on tour in February 1968, Mireille was in a car accident in which she fractured one of her vertebrae; the injury sidelined her for three months. She writes in her book, that they received a note which said "we will get you next time" but it was not proved to be anything but an accident.
In 1971, Barclay was unable to meet the demands for records. Johnny Stark then made a contract for Philips Records
to print all the Singles, and EP's, resulting in a US $1 Million lawsuit from Barclay for breach of contract. Barclay's contract was to run until 1972.
In 1985, Mireille joined in a huge project by Placido Domingo
, called The Tales of Cri-Cri. This television special used puppets along with fifty-years of traditional Mexican songs, producing popular versions in Spanish, French, and English. Mireille's father Roger died this same year.
In 1986, she performed a concert in Beijing, China. In her autobiography she states that she was the first Western performer to give a concert, but this was in error, as at least two other Western performances preceded hers.
In 1988, Mathieu published her autobiography with co-author Jacqueline Cartier. The title is Oui Je Crois which is taken from the lyrics of Mon crédo, her first recording.
In 1989, President François Mitterrand
invited Mathieu to sing a tribute to General Charles de Gaulle
. Johnny Stark died the same year. Divorced and estranged from his family, Johnny was entombed in the mausoleum Mathieu in Avignon.
Mireille writes in her autobiography that she and Johnny Stark understood each other. She wanted to be a singer, and he was tired of people who just wanted to be famous. They were both hard workers, and he kept her schedule filled with lucrative contracts. She also writes that she was forbidden to read the press, and having peeked at some of it, was content to follow that rule. Stark, of course, had a heavy hand in manipulating the press. Mireille writes that her mother was often surprised to read on the front page that she was engaged to a movie star, Prince, or Duke. Upon Starks death, everyone said that no one could replace him, and it proved true, but by then the entertainment press had also matured.
Many photographs and films from the early years show the life around Johnny Stark's villa in Roquefort (south of France). The villa,
named "La Bedoule", allowed everyone to escape from Paris and relax. The home supported Johnny's telephone addiction with 28 telephones, with each car also having a phone. Mireille lived here with her aunt Irene, and brothers and sisters would often visit. The pool was designed to be shallow all around, and deep in the center, as Mireille has a fear of drowning, and never learned to swim. The property was sold after Johnny's divorce.
The most controversial event of Mathieu's career occurred when she took over Stark's office on Avenue de Wagram, and ended her business relationships with Nadine Joubert and Vincence Stark. Her sister Monique became her business manager, and the two women have since been very successful in the industry.
In December 1990, She gave a series of concerts at the Palais des Congrès in Paris
.
In 1993, she released two albums devoted to her idol, Édith Piaf, essentially retracing her roots. One album was in French, the other in German. Her unique vibrato
since childhood has mostly faded by this stage, and her use of both alveolar and uvular trills
, popular with many Parisian singers, becomes dominant.
In January 1996, Vous lui Direz was released. She did not perform live in France to promote the album, preferring rather to go to Los Angeles, where she gave a tribute to Judy Garland
. She was dressed by Christian Lacroix
.
In 1999, she released a German album Alles nur ein Spiel, with Francis Lai on accordion.
In 2002, she released her thirty-seventh French album: De tes mains, followed by a series of concerts at the Paris Olympia
in November.
Mathieu celebrated the fortieth anniversary of her career at the Paris Olympia in November 2005, and released her thirty-eighth French album: Mireille Mathieu 2005. The album reached number fourteen on the charts in France, and remained in the top 100 for several months. The performance, and interview, were recorded and released in wide-screen DVD format in 2006; however, the DVD was in European video format only. A publishing label Abilene Disc was created to produce the DVD and CD, along with a new website.
In 2007, she gave her support to Nicolas Sarkozy
who was the mayor of Neuilly sur Seine (Neuilly), where she has resided since coming to Paris in 1965. Sarkozy was elected President of France, and Prince of Andorra.
On 1 November 2008, she was a guest of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
in Moscow, and performed a concert in his honor. The two visited the tent of visiting Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi
.
On 4 November 2010 she was awarded the Russian Medal of Friendship by President Dmitry Medvedev
at a State Dinner. She was in Russia and the Baltic States through-out November, returning to Paris after a concert in Warsaw, Poland on 28 November.
On 26 January 2011, Mireille was promoted from Chevalier (9 December 1999) to Officier of the Légion d'honneur
.
On 10 November 2011, Mathieu cancelled her concert in Israel for the second time in 2011. The promoter again failed to meet the required ticket sales.
Édith Piaf
Édith Piaf , born Édith Giovanna Gassion, was a French singer and cultural icon who became widely regarded as France's greatest popular singer. Her singing reflected her life, with her specialty being ballads...
, she has achieved great commercial success, recording over 1200 songs in nine different languages, with more than 120 million records sold worldwide.
Childhood to early teens
Mireille Mathieu was born and raised in AvignonAvignon
Avignon is a French commune in southeastern France in the départment of the Vaucluse bordered by the left bank of the Rhône river. Of the 94,787 inhabitants of the city on 1 January 2010, 12 000 live in the ancient town centre surrounded by its medieval ramparts.Often referred to as the...
, Vaucluse
Vaucluse
The Vaucluse is a department in the southeast of France, named after the famous spring, the Fontaine-de-Vaucluse.- History :Vaucluse was created on 12 August 1793 out of parts of the departments of Bouches-du-Rhône, Drôme, and Basses-Alpes...
département, France, the eldest daughter of a family of fourteen children. The youngest brother born after she had moved to Paris. Her father Roger (ʁɔ.ʒe) was from Avignon, and her mother Marcelle-Sophie Poirier came to Avignon from Dunkirk in 1944, as a refugee from World War II. Roger, with his father Arcade, ran a stonemason shop outside the Saint-Véran Cemetery in Avignon, which is still in business today. The family lived in poverty, and were dependent on government housing.
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's first paid performance before an audience, at age four, was rewarded with a lollipop. Another defining moment was seeing Édith Piaf sing on television.
Mireille performed poorly in elementary school due to dyslexia
Dyslexia
Dyslexia is a very broad term defining a learning disability that impairs a person's fluency or comprehension accuracy in being able to read, and which can manifest itself as a difficulty with phonological awareness, phonological decoding, orthographic coding, auditory short-term memory, or rapid...
, requiring an extra year to graduate. Born left handed, 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, she began work in a local factory in Montfavet
Montfavet
Montfavet is a village of southern France, part of the commune of Avignon, in the Vaucluse département.In southern France, the village is well known for the psychiatric hospital located on the Mont de Vergues. Camille Claudel was a patient in this hospital...
at age fourteen (1960), where she helped with the family income and paid for singing lessons. Very popular at work, she often sang songs at lunch, or while working. Like her parents, she is a short woman at five-feet in height. Her sister Monique (mo.nikə) began work at the same factory a few months later, both given bicycles on credit to commute with, making for very long days. The factory went out of business, so Mireille and her two oldest sisters became youth counselors for the summer before her rise to fame. A summer where she had her fortune told by Tarot cards by an old Gypsy
Gypsy
-Ethnic groups:* Romani people, a group widely dispersed throughout Europe* Dom people, an Indo-Aryan group** Lyuli, a Dom subgroup from Central Asia* Lom people, a group from East Anatolia and Armenia* Banjara, a group from India* Irish Travellers...
woman, saying she would soon mingle with Kings and Queens.
Mireille is Roman Catholic, and her patron Saint
Patron saint
A patron saint is a saint who is regarded as the intercessor and advocate in heaven of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or person...
is Saint Rita
Rita of Cascia
Saint Rita of Cascia is an Italian Augustinian saint.-Early life:St. Rita was born at Roccaporena near Spoleto, Umbria, Italy....
. Saint Rita is the Saint for the Impossible. Mireille's paternal grandmother Germaine assured her that Saint Rita was the one to pray to for hopeless cases. Beyond religion, like many artists, she is unabashed about superstition and luck. She has a terrible stage fright, and can be seen making the sign of the cross
Sign of the cross
The Sign of the Cross , or crossing oneself, is a ritual hand motion made by members of many branches of Christianity, often accompanied by spoken or mental recitation of a trinitarian formula....
before moving out on stage.
First public appearances
Mathieu began her career by participating in singing contests. Her private singing lessons were from Madame Laure Collière, who was also a piano teacher in Avignon. Self described as very stubborn in her autobiography, she wrote about singing love songs that the audience thought were inappropriate for a young girl. Thus, losing to Michèle Torr in 1962 during Avignon's first On Chante dans mon Quartier contest, and losing again in 1963. In 1964, though, she won the event with the Édith Piaf song "La Vie en roseLa vie en rose
"La Vie en Rose" was the signature song of French singer Édith Piaf.-Signature song of Édith Piaf:Édith Piaf first popularized La Vie en Rose in 1946. The lyrics were written by Piaf and the melody of the song by "Louiguy" . Initially, Piaf's peers and her songwriting team did not think the song...
." Her win got her a pre-audition
Audition
An audition is a sample performance by an actor, singer, musician, dancer or other performing artist.Audition may also refer to:* The sense of hearing* Adobe Audition, audio editing software...
on the televised talent show Jeu de la Chance in Paris, on which amateur singers competed for audience votes. Her participation and train fare, arranged by Raoul Colombe, the deputy mayor of Avignon. Accompanied by a pianist and dressed in black, like Piaf, she sang two Piaf songs to the audition judges and left dispirited. Non-French cannot hear it, but Parisians
Standard French
Standard French is an unofficial term for a standard variety of the French language...
at the studio made fun of her Provençal accent, and her dyslexia scrambled words. For example, her sister and current manager, Monique is called "Matite" because Mireille couldn't pronounce "petite" as a child.
During a 1965 summer gala, added to the Enrico Macias
Enrico Macias
Gaston Ghrenassia, known by his stage name Enrico Macias, is an Algerian French Pied noir singer and musician...
concert by Raoul Colombe (her first manager), she met her future manager Johnny Stark. Mireille and her father both thought he was an American based on his mannerisms, and they nicknamed him l'Américain. Stark had worked with singers such as Yves Montand
Yves Montand
-Early life:Montand was born Ivo Livi in Monsummano Terme, Italy, the son of poor peasants Giuseppina and Giovanni Livi, a broommaker. Montand's mother was a devout Catholic, while his father held strong Communist beliefs. Because of the Fascist regime in Italy, Montand's family left for France in...
, and the relationship between him and Mathieu is often described as resembling that between Colonel Tom Parker
Colonel Tom Parker
"Colonel" Thomas Andrew "Tom" Parker born Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk, was a Dutch-born entertainment impresario known best as the manager of Elvis Presley...
and Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
. Stark is credited with making her a star and the successor to Piaf. By 1968, under his careful management, she was France's most popular singer.
Breakthrough: Télé-Dimanche and Olympia
On Sunday 21 November 1965, Mathieu performed live on Jeu de la Chance, a talent segment of the popular French program "Télé-Dimanche." Both the studio audience and telephone voters gave her a slight lead over five-time winner Georgette Lemaire, so the producers called it a tie. Johnny Stark officially became her manager that night, and with his longtime assistant Nadine Joubert, helped prepare Mireille to win the contest the following week. In a later interview, she underscored the importance of the event: "For me, Paris was the end of the world. I never took a train or saw a camera before. I did not know what the outcome of the adventure would be."In the middle of her seven consecutive performances on Télé-Dimanche she performed a concert at the Paris Olympia
Paris Olympia
The Olympia is a music hall in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. Located at No. 28, Boulevard des Capucines, its closest métro/RER stations are Madeleine, Opéra, Havre – Caumartin and Auber....
, which propelled her to stardom. She signed with Bruno Coquatrix
Bruno Coquatrix
Bruno Coquatrix, was born in Ronchin, Nord on 5 August 1910 and died in Paris on 1 April 1979, buried in the famous Père Lachaise Cemetery . He is mainly known as the owner and manager of the music hall Paris Olympia...
, the owner of the Olympia, on 20 December, and performed the only three Piaf songs she had memorized, two days later. She was hailed in the press, in France and abroad, as the "Sparrow from Avignon," in reference to Piaf's nickname "Sparrow of the Streets." The Olympia performance convinced a skeptical Paul Mauriat
Paul Mauriat
Paul Mauriat was a French orchestra leader, specializing in light music. He is best known in the United States for his million selling remake of André Popp's "Love is Blue", which was #1 for 5 weeks in 1968...
to work with Mireille, and song writer André Pascal
André Pascal
André Pascal , born André Pascal Nicolas di Fusco in Marseille, was a French song-writer and composer.-History:As an adolescent he was already well versed in French poetry from François Villon to Alfred de Vigny. He could express himself in Alexandrian couplets, and he started to write...
joined forces to develop her into a successful act. Pascal wrote Mon crédo, Viens dans ma rue, La première étoile and many other hit songs for her. Her first album En Direct de L'Olympia
En Direct de L'Olympia
En Direct de L'Olympia was the first album released by French singer Mireille Mathieu after her television amateur contest success in November of 1965, and debut performance at the Paris Olympia in December....
– on the Barclay label
Barclay Records
Barclay Records is a French record label founded in the mid-1950s by Eddie Barclay under the alias, Edouard Ruault. Eddie Barclay also founded the Riviera label in the early-1950s....
– was released in 1966. Highly acclaimed, along with the singles and EP
Extended play
An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...
's from it, the album made her a star outside of France.
A regular early contributor of material was Francis Lai
Francis Lai
Francis Lai is a French accordionist, and composer noted for his film scores.While in his twenties, Francis Lai left home and went to Paris where he became part of the lively Montmartre music scene...
, who wrote two songs: C'est ton nom, and Un homme et une femme for her first album, and often accompanied her with his accordion
Accordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
on television. Her first record was recorded in the EMI studios, with Paul Mauriat's band. Mathieu's success led her record company, Barclay, to claim that they controlled 40% of the French pop disk market.
Mireille spent all of 1966 and 1967 touring. It was during a car ride to another concert that Stark advised Mireille that she was finally debt free, and worth more than a million francs. She had always prayed that she could get her family out of poverty, but the touring and singing were much more important at the time. In her autobiography, she said her first major purchases were a vehicle for her father's business, and a large home for her parents and siblings. Most important, a telephone, so her parents no longer had to go to the pharmacy
Pharmacy
Pharmacy is the health profession that links the health sciences with the chemical sciences and it is charged with ensuring the safe and effective use of pharmaceutical drugs...
to talk to her in Paris. Her one regret was that she was unable to see her grandmother Germaine in the hospital before she died during these tours.
Following her performance at the London Palladium, her French cover of Engelbert Humperdinck
Engelbert Humperdinck (singer)
Engelbert Humperdinck is a British pop singer, best known for his hits including "Release Me " and "After the Lovin'" as well as "The Last Waltz" .-Early life:...
's "The Last Waltz
The Last Waltz (song)
"The Last Waltz" is a song written by Barry Mason and Les Reed. It was one of Engelbert Humperdinck's biggest hits, spending five weeks at number one on the British charts in September and October 1967...
" (La dernière valse) generated much publicity in Great Britain and was a hit even though the original had been number one only a few months previously. She also toured Canada and the United States where she appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show
Ed Sullivan
Edward Vincent "Ed" Sullivan was an American entertainment writer and television host, best known as the presenter of the TV variety show The Ed Sullivan Show. The show was broadcast from 1948 to 1971 , which made it one of the longest-running variety shows in U.S...
and the Danny Kaye Show
Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye was a celebrated American actor, singer, dancer, and comedian...
. While on a visit to Hollywood, she met Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
, and in Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
sang with Dean Martin
Dean Martin
Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...
and Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
.
Career
Although the popularity of her genre suffered, given the domination of Rock and RollRock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
and the global lack of interest in non-English popular music during her most profitable years, she remained a popular artist in France and other countries. Many thousands of fans have met her before and after performances for autographs and well wishes over the years, and the common refrain is how well she treats her fans. She easily interacts with the public.
While on tour in February 1968, Mireille was in a car accident in which she fractured one of her vertebrae; the injury sidelined her for three months. She writes in her book, that they received a note which said "we will get you next time" but it was not proved to be anything but an accident.
In 1971, Barclay was unable to meet the demands for records. Johnny Stark then made a contract for Philips Records
Philips Records
Philips Records is a record label that was founded by Dutch electronics company Philips. It was started by "Philips Phonographische Industrie" in 1950. Recordings were made with popular artists of various nationalities and also with classical artists from Germany, France and Holland. Philips also...
to print all the Singles, and EP's, resulting in a US $1 Million lawsuit from Barclay for breach of contract. Barclay's contract was to run until 1972.
In 1985, Mireille joined in a huge project by Placido Domingo
Plácido Domingo
Plácido Domingo KBE , born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range...
, called The Tales of Cri-Cri. This television special used puppets along with fifty-years of traditional Mexican songs, producing popular versions in Spanish, French, and English. Mireille's father Roger died this same year.
In 1986, she performed a concert in Beijing, China. In her autobiography she states that she was the first Western performer to give a concert, but this was in error, as at least two other Western performances preceded hers.
In 1988, Mathieu published her autobiography with co-author Jacqueline Cartier. The title is Oui Je Crois which is taken from the lyrics of Mon crédo, her first recording.
In 1989, President François Mitterrand
François Mitterrand
François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand was the 21st President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, serving from 1981 until 1995. He is the longest-serving President of France and, as leader of the Socialist Party, the only figure from the left so far elected President...
invited Mathieu to sing a tribute to General Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
. Johnny Stark died the same year. Divorced and estranged from his family, Johnny was entombed in the mausoleum Mathieu in Avignon.
Mireille writes in her autobiography that she and Johnny Stark understood each other. She wanted to be a singer, and he was tired of people who just wanted to be famous. They were both hard workers, and he kept her schedule filled with lucrative contracts. She also writes that she was forbidden to read the press, and having peeked at some of it, was content to follow that rule. Stark, of course, had a heavy hand in manipulating the press. Mireille writes that her mother was often surprised to read on the front page that she was engaged to a movie star, Prince, or Duke. Upon Starks death, everyone said that no one could replace him, and it proved true, but by then the entertainment press had also matured.
Many photographs and films from the early years show the life around Johnny Stark's villa in Roquefort (south of France). The villa,
named "La Bedoule", allowed everyone to escape from Paris and relax. The home supported Johnny's telephone addiction with 28 telephones, with each car also having a phone. Mireille lived here with her aunt Irene, and brothers and sisters would often visit. The pool was designed to be shallow all around, and deep in the center, as Mireille has a fear of drowning, and never learned to swim. The property was sold after Johnny's divorce.
The most controversial event of Mathieu's career occurred when she took over Stark's office on Avenue de Wagram, and ended her business relationships with Nadine Joubert and Vincence Stark. Her sister Monique became her business manager, and the two women have since been very successful in the industry.
In December 1990, She gave a series of concerts at the Palais des Congrès in Paris
Palais des congrès de Paris
The Palais des congrès de Paris is a concert venue and convention centre in the 17th arrondissement of Paris, France. The venue was built by French architect Guillaume Gillet, and was inaugurated in 1974. Nearby the venue are Bois de Boulogne and the affluent neighbourhood of Neuilly-sur-Seine...
.
In 1993, she released two albums devoted to her idol, Édith Piaf, essentially retracing her roots. One album was in French, the other in German. Her unique vibrato
Vibrato
Vibrato is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterised in terms of two factors: the amount of pitch variation and the speed with which the pitch is varied .-Vibrato and...
since childhood has mostly faded by this stage, and her use of both alveolar and uvular trills
Trill consonant
In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular....
, popular with many Parisian singers, becomes dominant.
In January 1996, Vous lui Direz was released. She did not perform live in France to promote the album, preferring rather to go to Los Angeles, where she gave a tribute to Judy Garland
Judy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
. She was dressed by Christian Lacroix
Christian Lacroix
Christian Marie Marc Lacroix is a French fashion designer. The name may also refer to the company he founded.-Early life:Lacroix was born in Arles, Bouches-du-Rhône in southern France. At a young age he began sketching historical costumes and fashions. Lacroix graduated from high school in 1969...
.
In 1999, she released a German album Alles nur ein Spiel, with Francis Lai on accordion.
In 2002, she released her thirty-seventh French album: De tes mains, followed by a series of concerts at the Paris Olympia
Paris Olympia
The Olympia is a music hall in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. Located at No. 28, Boulevard des Capucines, its closest métro/RER stations are Madeleine, Opéra, Havre – Caumartin and Auber....
in November.
Mathieu celebrated the fortieth anniversary of her career at the Paris Olympia in November 2005, and released her thirty-eighth French album: Mireille Mathieu 2005. The album reached number fourteen on the charts in France, and remained in the top 100 for several months. The performance, and interview, were recorded and released in wide-screen DVD format in 2006; however, the DVD was in European video format only. A publishing label Abilene Disc was created to produce the DVD and CD, along with a new website.
In 2007, she gave her support to Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Sarkozy is the 23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. He assumed the office on 16 May 2007 after defeating the Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal 10 days earlier....
who was the mayor of Neuilly sur Seine (Neuilly), where she has resided since coming to Paris in 1965. Sarkozy was elected President of France, and Prince of Andorra.
On 1 November 2008, she was a guest of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...
in Moscow, and performed a concert in his honor. The two visited the tent of visiting Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi
Muammar al-Gaddafi
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar Gaddafi or "September 1942" 20 October 2011), commonly known as Muammar Gaddafi or Colonel Gaddafi, was the official ruler of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then the "Brother Leader" of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011.He seized power in a...
.
On 4 November 2010 she was awarded the Russian Medal of Friendship by President Dmitry Medvedev
Dmitry Medvedev
Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev is the third President of the Russian Federation.Born to a family of academics, Medvedev graduated from the Law Department of Leningrad State University in 1987. He defended his dissertation in 1990 and worked as a docent at his alma mater, now renamed to Saint...
at a State Dinner. She was in Russia and the Baltic States through-out November, returning to Paris after a concert in Warsaw, Poland on 28 November.
On 26 January 2011, Mireille was promoted from Chevalier (9 December 1999) to Officier of the Légion d'honneur
Légion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
.
On 10 November 2011, Mathieu cancelled her concert in Israel for the second time in 2011. The promoter again failed to meet the required ticket sales.
See also
- List of Mireille Mathieu songs
- List of personalities from Avignon