Arielle Dombasle

Arielle Dombasle
Arielle Dombasle at the 2000 César Awards ceremony
Born	Arielle Laure Maxime Sonnery de Fromental (1958-04-27) April 27, 1958 Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.
Occupation	Actress, singer
Years active	1978–present
Spouse(s)	Paul Albou (1976–1985) Bernard-Henri Lévy (1993–present)
Website
Official website

Arielle Dombasle born April 27, 1958^[1] is a French-American singer, actress, director and model. Her breakthrough roles were in Éric Rohmer's Pauline at the Beach (1983) and Alain Robbe-Grillet's The Blue Villa (1995). She is best known to American audiences for her appearances on Miami Vice and the 1984 miniseries Lace. She has released eight singles between 1978 and 2011 and seven albums.

Early years

She was born Arielle Laure Maxime Sonnery de Fromental in Hartford, Connecticut, the daughter of Jean-Louis Melchior Sonnery de Fromental, a silk manufacturer, and Francion Garreau-Dombasle. She descends from French-American immigrants in Mexico under her grandfather's diplomatic tenure. The family's surname was created in 1912, when Dombasle's grandfather René Sonnery (1887–1925), an industrialist from Lyon, married Anne-Marie Berthon du Fromental. Arielle took the pseudonym Arielle Dombasle in memory of her mother who died at the age of 36.

She and her brother Gilbert were raised in Mexico by their maternal grandparents after their mother's death in 1964. She was also raised at Château de Chaintré , the Sonnery family estate near Saumur, Maine et Loire. Her maternal grandfather, Maurice Garreau-Dombasle, was a close friend of and advisor to Charles de Gaulle and served as the French ambassador to Mexico. Her maternal grandmother was Manha Dombasle (née Germaine Massenet, 1898–1999), a writer and poet who translated Rabindranath Tagore's works into French and was a longtime friend of the science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, who dedicated his 1972 novel The Halloween Tree to her.

Career

Claude Lelouch and Arielle Dombasle

Dombasle embarked on a career as an actress and singer after attending the Conservatoire international de musique de Paris^[2] and further studies in Mexico.^[3] Dombasle has appeared in several Hollywood productions, but most of her acting work has been in French, as are her albums. She directed and wrote the scripts for two films, Les Pyramides Bleues and Chassé-croisé. She once described her own looks as "a Crazy Horse dancing girl".^[4]

Personal life

Arielle Dombasle

She is the third wife of French philosopher and writer Bernard-Henri Lévy. They were married on June 19, 1993 at Saint-Paul-de-Vence on the Côte d'Azur where they have a villa. She has two stepchildren, Antonin-Balthazar Lévy and Justine Lévy, a novelist. She was previously married to Dr. Paul Albou, described by Vanity Fair as a "playboy society dentist 32 years her senior."^[3]

Her brother, Gilbert Sonnery (aka Gilbert Sonnery Garreau), is a textile executive, having been chairman of J. B. Martin Ltée and vice chairman of the French holding company MRM.

Filmography

Discography

Singles

• Paris m'a séduit (1980)
• Cantate 78 (1985)
• Je te salue mari (1986)
• Nada más (1988) single
• Amour symphonique (1989)
• Liberta (2000)
• Odysseus (2000)
• Rhum And Coca-Cola (2004)
• C'est si bon (2006)
• Où Tu Veux (2007)
• Extraterrestre (2009)
• Hasta siempre (2010)
• Porque te vas (2011)
• Mambo 5 (2011)
• Ave Maria (2013)
• Cold Song (2013)

Albums

• Liberta (2000)
• Extase (2002)
• Amor Amor (2004)
• Arielle en concert (2005)
• C'est si bon (2006)
• Glamour à mort (2009)
• Diva Latina (2011)
• By Era (2013)

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Arielle Dombasle.

• Official web site
• Arielle Dombasle at the Internet Movie Database
• Arielle Dombasle at AllMovie
• Profile at Canal+ (French)