Despite her age, Mireille Mathieu continues to actively tour the world and release new songs, delighting her longtime fans and penetrating into the souls of those who hear her excellent, incomparable voice for the first time.
Difficult childhood
Mireille Mathieu was born on July 22, 1946 in the French commune of Avignon. Mireille was far from the only child of her parents. In total, the family had 14 children. It is not hard to guess that they all lived very poorly. The father of the family was a bricklayer, continued the family business, owning a small store of tombstones. By the way, the Mathieu family runs this store to this day. Returning to Mireille's childhood, I must say that she was the oldest of all her sisters and brothers. Therefore, she felt all the difficulties of a poor life like no one else. For a long time, the family lived in a frozen barrack. All this continued until the 8th child was born. Then they were given a 4-room apartment.
At school, the girl studied very badly. Her report card was full of "deu", but not because she was stupid and could not absorb the material. It's all about a bad relationship with the teacher, who forced the left-handed Mireille to write exclusively with her right hand. And when she wrote with her usual left hand, she received a blow with a ruler. Since then, she stumbled for a long time while reading and then it was decided to put her on the last desk, as a result of which Mireille closed herself in and stopped listening to the evil teacher.
Over time, a new teacher came to the class, however, it was very difficult for young Mathieu to get rid of the shackles of shame and worries, and at the age of 13 she quits school. Without any education or skills, she goes to work in an envelope factory.
Soon the factory went bankrupt, and the girl, without hesitation, found a job in a youth camp.
Long-awaited success
It is worth noting that the love of singing little Mireille was instilled by her father, who himself sang very often and even dreamed of becoming a singer for some time. For the first time in front of a huge audience, the girl sang when she was only 4 years old. It happened at a celebration on Christmas Eve.
Much later, when Mireille was working in the camp, she met an elderly gypsy woman who, from the Tarot cards, saw a very successful future for the girl.
Part of the money that Mathieu earned in the camp, she gave for private singing lessons.
At the age of 16, the young singer entered the city vocal competition, but could not win anything. Only two years later, she was able to get the main prize by performing the song "Life in Pink" by the famous singer Edith Piaf. For winning the competition, she was awarded a trip to the French capital, where she was supposed to take part in a talent show. The performance again caused a furor among the audience, and in 1965 Mathieu signed a contract with manager Johnny Stark. A year later, she was honored to perform at the Olympia Hall, one of the world's main stages. The singer's career skyrocketed.
In 1966, her debut album, En Direct de L'Olympia, was released. Although it was a live album, which includes covers of songs by other performers, nevertheless, despite this, it makes the singer truly famous not only in France, but also abroad.
Since then, Mireille began to tour a lot. Numerous concerts brought her a lot of money, some of which she first spent on buying a house for her parents, who spent most of their lives in deep poverty.
During her creative career, she had a chance to personally meet such mastodons of the music industry as Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Dean Martin.
The discography of the French singer has 84 albums, including in aggregate more than 1000 songs performed in 11 foreign languages. The last record of the famous chansonnier was released in 2018, and many are sure that the performer will definitely continue to delight her fans with new songs.
Personal life
Throughout her life, Mireille Mathieu has never been either a mother or a wife. There is nothing in her personal life that could interest the public. Instead of her husband, the singer chose creativity. At the same time, she does not regret her choice at all.
