Mireille Darc died on August 28, 2017 at the age of 79, after suffering from heart problems and two cerebral hemorrhages. The actress was very close to Jean-Pierre Foucault, with whom she forged an unwavering friendship for many years. As relayed by our colleagues from Télé-Loisirs, the host confided in the last moments of the actress in the biography Mireille Darc, the beating heart, signed Françoise Piazza. The book will appear in bookstores on Thursday, August 18, 2022.
The presenter had met Mirelle Darc on the set of Sacrée Soirée, on TF1. At the time, the future actress had been hired as a photographer. “Our Mediterranean origins brought us closer, she from Toulon and I from Marseille”, says Jean-Pierre Foucault in a letter addressed to Françoise Piazza.
Very quickly, the TV man and his wife bonded with Mireille Darc and her husband, Pascal Deprez. “We were two couples who liked each other and life was sweet when we were together,” says Jean-Pierre Foucault. The latter has thus spent many moments of relaxation with the actress, who “spent hours looking and smelling the sea, no doubt to relive his childhood memories”.
Heart surgery in 1980 and then in 2013, Mireille Darc had fragile health. “Evil has set in,” says Jean-Pierre Foucault about his friend’s last months. “I often went to see her during the day, and sometimes at night, to keep Pascal company. A few words, a few looks… We understood each other”. It was at her Parisian home that the actress of Burned Hearts died, following a new stroke. “One evening at her house, at the end of my visit, she looked me straight in the eye and said: Hi. She left during the night,” Jean-Pierre Foucault recalled in his letter.
Mireille Darc has enjoyed success in film, television and on stage. Among his most notable films are Les Barbouzes, La Grande Sauterelle, The Tall Blond with a Black Shoe, The Return of the Tall Blond or The Ice Breasts. But it is especially on the small screen that she has marked the public with successful sagas like Les Cœurs brûlés or Terre indigo.
On the private side, she was Alain Delon’s companion for fifteen years. The star of French cinema has also remained very close to Mireille Darc. “For me, Mimi is THE wife of Alain Delon”, wrote according to HereAnthony Delon in his autobiography. “My mother is the only one he married, it’s true, but for me Alain Delon’s wife, the pair, was Mireille Darc,” says the actor’s son.
Jean-Pierre Foucault has always considered “Mimi” as “his friend”. The star presenter has retired from television in recent years, only appearing for a few EuroMillions draws, on TF1. He will be back next December for the Miss France 2023 ceremony. In the meantime, he said he refused several projects, including that of candidate for Mask Singer and Dance with the stars.