Mireille Mathieu (; born 22 July 1946) is a French singer. She has recorded over 1,200 songs in eleven languages, with more than 122 million records sold worldwide.
Biography and career
Early years
Mireille Mathieu was born on 22 July 1946, in Avignon, France, as the eldest daughter in a family of fourteen children; the youngest brother was born after she moved to Paris. Her father, Roger, and his family were natives of Avignon, while her mother, Marcelle-Sophie (née Poirier), was from Dunkirk. Marcelle arrived in Avignon in 1944 as a refugee from World War II after her grandmother had died and her mother went missing. Roger, along with his father, Arcade, ran the family stonemason shop just outside the main gate of . The Mathieu family has been stonemasons for four generations. Today, the shop is named Pompes Funèbres Mathieu-Mardoyan, owned and managed by her sister Réjane's family.
The Mathieu family lived in poverty, but their living conditions improved significantly in 1954, when subsidized housing was built in the Malpeigné neighborhood near the cemetery. Then, in 1961, they moved to a larger tenement in the neighborhood southeast of the city.
Roger had once dreamed of becoming a singer, but his father, Arcade, disapproved, which inspired him to encourage one of his children to learn to sing with him in church. Mathieu included her father's operatic voice on her 1968 Christmas album, where it was mixed into the Minuit Chrétiens song. Mathieu's first paid performance before an audience, at age four, was rewarded with a lollipop when she sang during Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve 1950. A defining moment for her was seeing Édith Piaf sing on television. Abandoning higher education at age 14 (1961), after moving to Croix des Oiseaux, she began working in a local factory in Montfavet (a suburb southeast of town), contributing to the family income and paying for her singing lessons. Popular at work, she often sang during lunch or while working. Like her parents, she is short in stature, standing at 1.52 m (5 feet) tall. Her sister Monique, born on 8 July 1947, began working at the same factory a few months later. Both sisters received bicycles on credit to commute, resulting in long days and difficult memories of riding against the mistral winds. Self-described as very stubborn in her autobiography, she wrote about singing love songs that the audience deemed inappropriate for a young girl. Mathieu and her father initially thought Stark was American, based on his name and demeanor, and they nicknamed him l'Américain. Stark had worked with artists such as Yves Montand, and the relationship between him and Mathieu is often likened to that of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley. Stark is credited with making her a star and the successor to Piaf. By 1968, under his careful management, she had become France's most popular singer.
In the middle of her seven consecutive performances on Télé-Dimanche, She was hailed in the press, in France and abroad, as the Piaf d'Avignon (Sparrow of Avignon), in reference to Piaf's nickname "Sparrow of the Streets". Stark then abandoned the Piaf direction he was taking her in. The Olympia performance convinced a skeptical Paul Mauriat to work with Mireille, and songwriter André Pascal joined forces to develop her into a successful act. Together they wrote new modern material for her: Mon crédo, Viens dans ma rue, La première étoile, and many other hit songs.
thumb|left|upright|[[Johnny Stark (talent manager)|Johnny Stark and Mathieu, 1971]]
Mathieu spent all of 1966 and 1967 touring. It was then, during a car journey to another concert, that Stark advised Mathieu that she was finally debt-free and worth more than a million francs (US$200,000 in 1967). She had always prayed that she could get her family out of poverty, but the touring and singing were much more important at the time. In her autobiography, she stated her first major purchases were a vehicle for her father's business and a large home for her parents and siblings. Most importantly, she had a telephone installed for the family, so her parents no longer had to go to the pharmacy to talk to her while she was in Paris. Her one regret was that she was unable to see her grandmother Germaine in the hospital before she died because of all the tour contracts.
Mathieu arrived in Paris with two dresses and a change of underwear, and Stark set her up in style, sent for Mathieu's two eldest sisters, and let them go shopping for a week. He then rented her a home and a maid in the smart district of Neuilly after she had won, and made sure she only had her singing to worry about. Stark recorded all the expenses, though, and he was fully compensated before a franc was ever put in Mathieu's account. She writes in her book that they received a note which said "we will get you next time", but it was not proven to be anything other than an accident.
In 1971, Barclay was unable to meet the demand for records. Stark then made a contract with Philips Records to issue all the singles and EPs, resulting in a million-dollar lawsuit from Barclay for breach of contract. Barclay's contract was scheduled to run until 1972.
In 1972, Mathieu toured Canada and produced a live album. Stark had his first heart attack while making arrangements for this concert.
In 1983, Mathieu established another publishing company, Abilene Disc. This company is used to publish her recordings and is managed by her sisters Monique and Christiane.
In 1985, Mathieu joined Plácido Domingo in performing a children's show called The Tales of Cri-Cri. This television special featured puppets along with fifty years of traditional Mexican songs, producing popular versions in Spanish, French, and English. Mathieu's father, Roger, died this same year.
In 1988, W. Kordes' Söhne, a German rose-breeding company, introduced the Mireille Mathieu Rose to match her favorite lipstick color. Mathieu also published her autobiography with co-author . The title is Oui je crois, meaning "Yes, I Believe", which is taken from the lyrics of Mon crédo, her first recording. The book was viewed as a final chapter in her career, and Stark was also exhausted and overweight by this time. Pierre Delanoë wrote a passionate song about Joan of Arc titled La Demoiselle d'Orléans for Mathieu. The final lyric reads: "When I think of all I have given France... and she has forgotten me." She used her fists to punch the air while singing the song.
In 1989, President François Mitterrand invited Mathieu to sing a tribute to General Charles de Gaulle.
thumb|President Medvedev and Mireille Mathieu, November 2010
In November 2010, she was awarded the Russian Medal of Friendship by President Dmitry Medvedev at a state dinner. She was in Russia and the Baltic States throughout November, returning to Paris after a concert in Warsaw, Poland, on 28 November. In January 2011, Mireille was promoted from Chevalier (9 December 1999) to Officier of the Légion d'honneur.
In November 2011, Mathieu canceled her concert in Israel for the second time that year due to the promoter's failure to meet the required ticket sales.
In March 2012, Mathieu, along with Jean Claudric and his orchestra, visited three cities in Siberia, Russia: Perm (21 March), Tyumen (24 March), and Yekaterinburg (26 March).
During an interview in Moscow, Mathieu remarked that the group Pussy Riot had committed a sacrilege in the church by staging a political demonstration against President Putin. The French television program "On n'est pas couché" edited out the second half of her statement and labeled her a tool of President Putin. Her lawyer, André Schmidt, sued the station for defamation, but the suit was dismissed at trial in July 2014. The part that was edited out was "As a woman artist and a Christian, I beg the indulgence of these three girls." The three women were ultimately convicted and sentenced to two years in prison for hooliganism and inciting religious hatred.
In October 2012, Mathieu announced on her webpage that she would be re-releasing her album Chante Piaf, with two new recordings added in celebration of her 50th year as a singer and the 50th anniversary of Piaf's death. Also that month, she had to cancel several shows in Russia, including performances in Rostov, Volgograd, Samara, and Ufa. She had contracted these shows through a Yekaterinburg company called Mix Art, via her Malta agent, Foresa Investment Ltd. She stated that Mix Art "acted in a highly unprofessional and even fraudulent way". However, she was able to salvage the tours with performances in Moscow on 3 November 2012, Saint Petersburg on 5 November 2012, and Krasnodar on 7 November 2012. She also performed the rescheduled concert in Ufa on 7 March 2013.
In December 2013, her lawyers won a lawsuit against MGM Home Entertainment for failing to compensate her production company, Abilene Disc, for the 1967 song Les Yeux de l'amour (The Eyes of Love), which was used in the German version of the movie Casino Royale. Since 2009, she has been the main guest star of the Spasskaya Tower Military Music Festival and Tattoo, held on Moscow's Red Square. On 5 September 2013, during her concert at the festival, she performed in a light dress under icy rain and gusty winds, refusing an offer for a coat as she deemed it disrespectful to the freezing audience in the stands. Russian TV's Culture channel praised her performance that day as a remarkable feat.
Mathieu had an active tour schedule for 2014, celebrating her 50th year in show business (she dates her career from the year she won her first singing contest in Avignon). Her first concert was scheduled to be in Kyiv, and she held out hope it would proceed, but ultimately canceled it seven days prior "due to the instability". Her France 50th Anniversary tour ran from October to November 2014.
Mathieu performed her 50th Anniversary tour in Germany and Austria from 1 to 16 March 2015, singing at sold-out venues in twelve different cities. She credits her sister and manager, Monique, for keeping the general audience ticket prices reasonable.
In March 2015, she announced on her webpage that all concerts in Russia were canceled "due to the economic situation". The concert website stated that the Russian currency had collapsed, making it no longer possible to finance the concert and travel arrangements.
On 26 May 2015, Mathieu performed at the "Culture Without Borders" (Culture sans frontière) project at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. She participated in a concert titled The Allies of the Great Victory: A Musical Story, featuring the Jazz Band of Igor Butman (Russia-US). Other soloists included Allan Harris (US), Sanya Kroitor (Israel), Yakov Yavno (US), Igor Butman, Mikhail Gluz (Russia), Polina Zizak (Russia), and various other celebrities.
On 30 July 2015, she returned to Byblos, Lebanon, after 41 years for the Byblos International Festival. Her sisters Monique—who is also her manager—and Marie France accompanied her mother on the trip, who then made a brief appearance with her on stage, escorted by the family servant, Hervé-Marc.
On 20 March 2016, Mathieu's mother died at the age of 94 from a pulmonary embolism. She was entombed in the mausoleum Mathieu at the Saint-Véran cemetery in Avignon.
Personal life
Mathieu is a devout Catholic and attends Catholic Mass with her family.