Mylene Demongeot / French, Down To Earth And Sexy

Mylene Demongeot – French, Down To Earth And Sexy

November 24, 2010 by TidiousTed

When someone says that Mylene Demongeot looks like Brigitte Bardot she doesn’t like it very much, but after a short while the charming smile is back. I’m simply Mylene Demongeot, she says firmly. I admire Bardot immensely, but the only things we have in common is that we are born under the same sign. Home in France they call me "the firework". Isn’t that stupid. Mylene has been back in England, this time to star in "The Singer Not The Song", playing against Dirk Bogarde. Part of the movie was done in Alhaurin de la Torre in Spain, here Mylene made a "spectacle" of her self where ever she went. Firstly she was wearing slacks and sleeveless blouses, unthinkable for a Spanish woman, secondly she was smoking cigarettes. The spanish crossed themselves when ever they caught sight of her. But when the poor director wanted her to wear skirts and put out the cigarette, Mylene’s anger flared up and she gave him a piece of her mind in French. After that he preferred sour faced Spaniards to Mylene’s anger. 

Two turtledoves, Mylene and Bobo Coste But usually Mylene is full of charm and sexiness. And by the way it is wrong to call her a girl, she has already been married more than a year to the French photographer Henri Coste, whom she prefers to call Bobo. I love Bob she claims, I hope I’ll never love someone else.  Mylene had a pretty rough childhood which have put it’s mark on her,she can be pretty egoistic and she feels that she has the right to feel good in every way.  She was born in nice to a French father and Russian mother and it didn’t take long before the parents understood that there was things wrong with the little girl’s eyesight. and as she grew up she became more and more cross eyed.  Other children made fun of me, she says, and grown ups turned away so they didn’t have to look at me. I looked like a spectacle and was thin as an asparagus.  Luckily her parents saw her problems and sjhe started at an Convent school where everyone was kind to her. for the first time she felt free and could smile at the world. Her greatest joy was music, she could play the piano for hours on end, but as she grew older her eyesight got so bad that she no longer could see the scores in front of her.  Mylene had reached her teens, a period in life when your feelings are strong and hard to control.The sorrow at having to stop playing the piano made her so desperate that she sliced her wrists. She was saved in the last minute and was sent to an American hospital in Paris.  This was to change her life completely, her eyes was examined by an specialist that thought an operation would cure her eyesight and he performed a successful operation giving her the eyesight back. six months later Mylene could see as good as everyone else and she was not even cross eyed anymore. Her popularity rose among the boys and she no longer wanted to be a concert pianist but a model.  She went to Paris searching for a job as a photo model and met Henri Coste, a well established photographer ten years her senior. It didn’t take him long to realize that Mylene were a great model and that she just needed a chance to prove it. He took hundreds of pictures of her and soon her funny face was on the cover of a lot of French magazines.  Coste was working for the French film director Raymond Rouleau as well and when he saw the pictures of Mylene, he asked her to come and try her hand at the movies. The result was a large part in one of his movies.  Horseback riding in Spain.

After this she had parts in several movies playing against well known actors like Henri vidal and Curt Jürgens. But the greatest part of all was when she married Henri Coste, the man that discovered her.  She got married in a blouse and skirt,imagine that,he says, she isn’t in the least vain. She is most comfortable in her blouses and skirts, she only wears a decent dress when the situation demands it. And she is rather tall so she prefers Italian moccasins to high heeled shoes.  Bobo is in constant fear of what she might say, Mylene has a habit of saying just what she thinks. But even though she is pretty free outright in her speech,she has a pretty strict opinion about what is decent and not. It is wrong to think that a woman is more sexy if she takes her clothes of. If she’s got personality, she can keep her clothes on, I do.  The pair has a great flat in Paris, but Mylene prefers London, so she was happy when she got a part in "The Singer Not The Song". Everything is so orderly in English studios, she claims, if they only didn’t have to start so early in the morning. They want me finished and ready for filming at seven in the morning, what about that.  Mylene as the fifteen year old Locha in "The Singer Not The Song" Bobo is always with his young wife and in Spain they got time for horseback riding, their great hobby. Horses was rented for the actors’ spare time.  Well, even stars need some time off, so when Mylene is filming in England they board a plain and set out for the riviera when Mylene gets time. But they seldom go alone,as the plain stops off in Paris, Mylene’s or Henri’s mother are usually there to join them.  it is all right with us,Mylene says, bobo and I are together anyway. We love one another more for every day. No one is more happy than we are!  John Miles, Leslie Caron and Mylene meeting Prince Phillip after the premiere on Odeon movie theater in London. From the Norwegian magazine  "Alle Kvinners Blad"  No 36 – August 31st 1960