His role as guardian angel made him popular with the French. However, Mimie Mathy had to overcome several ordeals before achieving fame, especially from birth. When she was born on July 8, 1957, the young Michèle suffered from achondroplasia, a disease linked to a form of dwarfism that was detected in her at one year old.
A physical difference that parents were unaware of at the time. “As I am from the last century, there were no ultrasounds yet”, confided the actress in Seven to eight in February 2021 on TF1. “There was no factor in my dad’s or my mom’s family that could predict such a somewhat original arrival.”
However, it is another member of the family who will detect this growth retardation, in an innocuous way. “It was my paternal grandmother who noticed the difference, because I have a cousin who is 15 days older than me, and so she was knitting for her first two granddaughters. realized that my sleeves were much longer”, she says before opening. “That’s when my parents consulted a doctor who told them ‘Yes indeed, Michèle is achondroplase, that means she is a dwarf'”.
From the height of her 32 meter, Mimie Mathy has made her difference a strength although she hates the pejorative term of dwarf. This greatly affected his parents. “They were told awful things at the time. They were told ‘she won’t grow taller than 70 centimeters’, ‘she will never walk’. They must have cried a lot. But I think they took on them. This strength they have, they gave me a lot anyway, ”she tells our colleagues.
Since her debut on television in the 1980s, Michel Fugain’s friend has been delighted with the success achieved until today. After having formed a famous trio with Michèle Bernier and Isabelle de Botton at the Théâtre de Bouvard, she evolved solo through several shows. A notoriety that the flagship member of the Enfoirés savors on a daily basis. “I’m lucky to have succeeded. I’m also lucky to be popular, and that’s not a dirty word,” she assured Gala in March 2022.
Today happy with her husband Benoit, the actress Mimie Mathy, however, ensures to live like everyone else, without ever having taken the big head. “Basically, I repeat, I live normally. I do my shopping, my laundry…”, while nevertheless detailing the disadvantages of celebrity. “Sometimes I would like to go shopping at Galeries Lafayette, but it’s not possible. Just like spending the month of August at a campsite. And I have no desire to find myself in a bathing suit in a magazine !”. Back in pictures on his career through our slideshow.
