Miou-Miou

Miou-Miou
Miou-Miou in February 2013
Born	Sylvette Herry (1950-02-22) 22 February 1950 Paris, France
Nationality	French
Occupation	Actress
Children	2

Miou-Miou (born Sylvette Herry on 22 February 1950) is a French actress. In her career she has worked with a number of international directors, including Michel Gondry, Bertrand Blier, Yves Boisset, Claude Berri, Jacques Deray, Michel Deville, Diane Kurys, Radu Mihăileanu, Patrice Leconte, Joseph Losey, and Louis Malle.^[1]

Career

Miou-Miou shooting in Paris, in 1975

Miou-Miou shooting in Paris 1975

Miou-Miou in 2009.

She was born Sylvette Herry in Paris, France. Her stage name, Miou-Miou (a reference to the sound of a cat), was given to her by Coluche. She was raised in Paris by her mother, a greengrocer. After studying acting she worked in improvisational theater with Coluche and Patrick Dewaere, joining with them to help found the new comedy theatre Café de la Gare.^[2] She made her film debut in La vie sentimentale de Georges Le Tueur and La Cavale (both 1971).^[3]

She showed a mixture of innocence and strength in her roles. In 1973 she appeared in three films, Elle court, elle court la banlieue, Les granges brulées and Les aventures de Rabbi Jacob. Her big break came with Blier's Les Valseuses (Going Places), released in 1974. After her role in Les valseuses, she began getting leading roles in comedy and drama. Through the 1970s, she had roles in such films as F...Like Fairbanks (1976), Alain Tanner's Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000 (1976), Losey's Roads to the South (1978) and La dérobade (Memoirs of a French Whore, 1979) directed by Daniel Duval, in which she portrayed a young prostitute. She received a César Award for that role. Many of these 1970s films were seen in North America in art-house venues. In 1976 she appeared in one of the last spaghetti westerns, Damiano Damiani's A Genius, Two Friends, and an Idiot.

She is known for her relationships with actor Patrick Dewaere, who is the father of her first child Angèle, and with the singer Julien Clerc, with whom she had a second daughter, Jeanne and a son, Laurent.

By 2006, she had 70 films to her credit. Through the 1980s she was convincing in such films as La gueule du loup (1981), Guy de Maupassant (1982), Kurys' Entre nous (1983) with Isabelle Huppert, Blanche et Marie (1984), Evening Dress (1986), and Deville's La lectrice (The Reader, 1988). She played opposite Lee Marvin (in one of his last roles) in Boisset’s unfortunate Dog Day in 1984.

The 1990s saw her in Louis Malle's May Fools (1990), Deray's thriller Netchaïev is back, the comedy Un indien dans la ville (1994), and The Eighth Day (1996) and Dry Cleaning in 1997. She appeared opposite Gérard Depardieu in a new production of Émile Zola's Germinal (1993). By now in her fifties, her film roles have abated, as she also began to appear in theatre.^[2] 2001 saw her in Agathe et le grand magasin and in 2004 she appeared in L'après-midi de monsieur Andesmas, among other films.

Miou-Miou does not consider herself a "star". She was quoted as saying in 1989, "I turned down dinner with Mickey Rourke. Because he's a star. To me, a star is inaccessible, mysterious, an impossible dream — and should stay that way. Adjani's a star. Deneuve's a star. Not me".^[4]

Partial filmography

References

External links

• Miou-Miou at the Internet Movie Database
• Brief profile
• Ted Strong Fan Site
• Lenin Imports bio

v t e César Award for Best Actress 1976 Romy Schneider 1977 Annie Girardot 1978 Simone Signoret 1979 Romy Schneider 1980 Miou-Miou 1981 Catherine Deneuve 1982 Isabelle Adjani 1983 Nathalie Baye 1984 Isabelle Adjani 1985 Sabine Azéma 1986 Sandrine Bonnaire 1987 Sabine Azéma 1988 Anémone 1989 Isabelle Adjani 1990 Carole Bouquet 1991 Anne Parillaud 1992 Jeanne Moreau 1993 Catherine Deneuve 1994 Juliette Binoche 1995 Isabelle Adjani 1996 Isabelle Huppert 1997 Fanny Ardant 1998 Ariane Ascaride 1999 Élodie Bouchez 2000 Karin Viard 2001 Dominique Blanc 2002 Emmanuelle Devos 2003 Isabelle Carré 2004 Sylvie Testud 2005 Yolande Moreau 2006 Nathalie Baye 2007 Marina Hands 2008 Marion Cotillard 2009 Yolande Moreau 2010 Isabelle Adjani 2011 Sara Forestier 2012 Bérénice Bejo 2013 Emmanuelle Riva