French actress. In the course of her career she has worked with leading directors like François Truffaut, Jean-Pierre Melville, Jacques Deray, Dino Risi, Mario Monicelli, Mario Bava, Peter Collinson and Ken Annakin. Although she appeared in more than fifty films, it is for her role as “Angélique”that she is best known in France.
After some romantic comedies and a small role in François Truffaut’s Tirez sur le pianiste (“Shoot The Pianist”, 1960), she worked in England and made some, mainly small-budget, films in Italy, usually playing women of easy virtue.
She needed a role which could make her a star. It was in 1963, when it was decided to make a movie of the sensational novel “Angélique”, that Michèle got her chance. Mercier won the role after trying out for it – she did not appreciate this very much since she was being treated like a beginner at a time when she was already well-known in Italy. At the time she was contacted to play Angélique, she had already acted in over twenty films. During the next four years she made five sequels which enjoyed astonishing success. However the role of Angélique, “the Marquise of the Angels”, was both a blessing and a curse. It catapulted her to almost instant stardom, rivalling Brigitte Bardot in celebrity and popularity, but the character of Angélique overshadowed all other aspects of her career. By the end of the 1960s, the names Angélique and Michèle Mercier were synonymous.
Attempting to break free from the character Michèle played against Jean Gabin The Thunder of God directed by Denys de la Patellière. She then appeared with Robert Hossein in La Seconde Vérité directed by Christian-Jaque. Mercier then left France and tried to re-start her career in the United States, unfortunately without much success.
After 14-year layoff she returned in the 1998 film La Rumbera, directed by Piero Vivarelli. In 2002 at the Cannes Film Festival she presented her second book of memoirs.
Mercier was made a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres on the 6th of March 2006.
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