MIREILLE DARC

29 Aug

(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

Michael Darvell

Michael Darvell trained as a librarian at Watford and in Surrey before joining Ealing Libraries where he became Music Librarian for the borough. He edited Masthead, the magazine of the University of North London School of Librarianship, The Surrealist, the staff magazine of Surrey County Library, and contributed to the Assistant Librarian and London Librarian professional journals. A freelance film reviewer since 1970, he has written for Film, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Movie Maker and Radio Times, as well as editing Montage, the London film societies magazine, for ten years. A change of career saw him joining What’s On in London as Features Editor and he eventually stepped into the shoes of the late F. Maurice Speed (founding father of Film Review annual) as the magazine’s Editor. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-editor of the Film Review annual with Mansel Stimpson. As well as writing about films, Michael has reviewed theatre for The Stage newspaper, and has written about music theatre and cabaret for the Classical Source and Musical Theatre Review websites. He is also a former restaurant critic for the ViewLondon website. Michael has been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2005.

MIREILLE DARC

KÁROLY MAKK

TOBE HOOPER