NEW YORK — Yvette Mimieux, the blond and blue-eyed 1960sStar of the film “Where the Boys Are,” “The Time Machine”And “Light in the Piazza,”It has died. She was 80.
Michelle Bega, a family spokesperson, stated that Mimieux died peacefully in her sleep from natural causes Monday night at her Los Angeles home.
1960 “The Time Machine,”Based on H.G. Based on H.G.
Mimieux was a starlet of the 1960s, thanks to this role and many others.
She also starred in MGM’s teen movie that year. “Where the Boys Are”as one of the four college students going on spring break to Florida. She is distraught after she was sexually assaulted at a motel and walks despondently into traffic.
“I suppose I had a soulful quality,”She spoke out to the Washington Post in 1979. “I was often cast as a wounded person, the ‘sensitive’ role.”
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Yvette Carmen Mimieux, a daughter of a French father (and a Mexican mother) was born in Los Angeles on January 8, 1942. She was “discovered”Jim Byron was 15 when he spotted her in a bridle path while flying over the Hollywood Hills.
While riding on horseback with a friend, she was approached by Byron who landed in front and gave her his card. Mimieux started out as a model, before MGM signed her up in 1959.
“The subtle approach is the thing,”1961: Byron shared his thoughts with The Associated Press “I think we’ve got another Garbo on our hands.”
Mimieux was everywhere for a few more years. Life magazine placed her on the cover of the magazine with the headline: “Warmly Wistful Starlet.”Before turning 21, she made eight films.
Mimieux appeared in four films in 1962 including Vincent Minnelli’s. “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”Guy Green’s “Light in the Piazza.”In the latter, she was the beautiful, mentally disabled daughter of Olivia de Havilland. A trip to Italy
George Hamilton portrays Clara Mimieux’s character.
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Mimieux played a bride in “Toys in the Attic”(1963), A surfer epileptic in “Dr. Kildare”(1964) and a Bride in “Joy in the Morning” (1965). (1965). “The Most Deadly Game,”Aaron Spelling. She was a frequent guest in television movies of the 1970s and 1980s, many of which she wrote.
Mimieux co-wrote the 1984 CBS TV movie and co-produced it. “Obsessive Love,”About a fan who is obsessed with a soap star. Mimieux claimed she had to fight the network for having a woman played by herself in such a role. John Hinckley’s obsessiveness with Jodie Foster was the inspiration for her idea, but with the gender roles reversed.
“The network felt people wouldn’t believe me as this woman. They said to me, ‘She’s a loner, and she shouldn’t be attractive,’ “Mimieux spoke to The New York Times 1984. “I asked them, ‘Are you saying that only unattractive people can be crazy or lonely or have unfulfilled lives?’ “
Mimieux stated that television was never the. “love affair”Film was her medium of choice.
She was unhappy about the roles she was offered and the undimensional women who were being written. The 1979 Disney film was one of her most notable films. “The Black Hole.”Mimieux was in her late 40s when she retired from the entertainment industry. Her interests — including archeology, painting and traveling — always went beyond fame. Off-screen, Mimieux was much more than the naïve starlet she was pigeonholed as.
“I decided I didn’t want to have a totally public life,”She told the Post. “When the fan magazines started wanting to take pictures of me making sandwiches for my husband, I said no.
“It is said that cameras can steal a part of your soul. It can take something from your relationships and it makes them less meaningful.
Mimieux first married Evan Harland Engber in 1959 before later divorcing. From 1972 to 1985 she was married the film director Stanley Donen. She married Howard F. Ruby in 1986. Ruby, as well as many stepchildren, have survived her.
