Yvette Carmen Mimieux (January 8, 1942 – January 17, 2022) was an American television and film actress.

She is perhaps known best for her breakout role in The Time Machine (1960). She was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards during her acting career.

Spouses

• Evan Harland Engber,  (m. 1959, divorced)​
• Stanley Donen, (m. 1972; div. 1985)​
• Howard Ruby, (m. 1986)

Early life and career

Mimieux was born in Los Angeles on January 8, 1942, to her French father René Mimieux and Mexican mother Maria Montemayor. According to her mother's obituary, Mimieux had at least two siblings, a sister, Gloria, and a brother Edouardo.

Talent manager Jim Byron suggested she become an actress.

Mimieux's first acting appearances were in episodes of the television shows Yancy Derringer and One Step Beyond.

MGM

Mimieux's first feature was George Pal's film version of H. G. Wells's 1895 novel The Time Machine (1960) starring Rod Taylor, in which she played the character Weena. It was made for MGM, which put her under long-term contract.

Mimieux appeared in Platinum High School (1960), produced by Albert Zugsmith for MGM, which was released before The Time Machine.

Mimieux guest-starred in an episode of Mr Lucky, then was one of several leads in the highly popular teen comedy Where the Boys Are (1960), which became less humorous in the sequence were Mimieux’s character is sexually assaulted at one of the party houses and she is found wandering the streets afterward, traumatized, in a moving and serious aside from the rest of the film.

MGM put Mimieux in the ingenue role in Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1961), an expensive flop. Arthur Freed wanted to team her and George Hamilton in a remake of The Clock, but it was not made.

Mimieux had a central role in Light in the Piazza (1962) with Olivia de Havilland and George Hamilton, playing a mentally disabled girl. The film lost money but was well regarded critically. She later said:

"I suppose I have a soulful quality. I was often cast as a wounded person, the 'sensitive' role."

Mimieux was slated for a role in A Summer Affair at MGM, but it was not made.

Mimieux had a small part in Pal's The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1963), another commercial disappointment. Also later that year, she appeared in Diamond Head (1963) for Columbia Pictures, billed second to Charlton Heston.

Mimieux went to United Artists for Toys in the Attic, based on the play by Lillian Hellman and co-starring Dean Martin.

While at MGM, Mimieux guest-starred on two episodes of Dr. Kildare alongside Richard Chamberlain. She played a surfer suffering from epilepsy, a performance that was much acclaimed. In her appearance she was the first person on American television to show her navel.

Mimieux made a cameo as herself in Looking for Love (1964) starring Connie Francis and played Richard Chamberlain's love interest in Joy in the Morning (1965), a melodrama.

Post-MGM

Mimieux was in a Western with Max von Sydow at Fox, The Reward (1965); the Disney comedy Monkeys, Go Home! (1967); and a heist film The Caper of the Golden Bulls (1967).

Mimieux did The Desperate Hours (1967) for TV and was reunited with Rod Taylor in the MGM action movie Dark of the Sun (1968). In 1968 she narrated a classical music concert at the Hollywood Bowl.

In 1969, Mimieux was top-billed in Three in the Attic a hit for AIP, and appeared in the critically acclaimed 1969 movie The Picasso Summer alongside Albert Finney. The following year, she was the female lead in The Delta Factor , an action film.

Television

Mimieux had one of the leads in The Most Deadly Game (1970–1971), a short-lived TV series from Aaron Spelling. She replaced Inger Stevens, who had been slated to star, but committed suicide one month before production began. Around this time Mimieux had a business selling Haitian products and studied archeology; she would travel several months of each year.

In 1971, after making the TV movies Death Takes a Holiday (1971) and Black Noon (1971), Mimieux sued her agent for not providing her with movie work despite having taken her money.

Mimieux was an air hostess in MGM's Skyjacked (1972), starring Charlton.Heston and was in the Fox science-fiction film The Neptune Factor (1973).

By the early 1970s, Mimieux was unhappy with the roles offered to female actors:

"The women they [male screenwriters] write are all one dimensional. They have no complexity in their lives. It's all surface. There's nothing to play. They're either sex objects or vanilla pudding."

Mimieux had been writing for several years prior to this film, mostly journalism and short stories. She had the idea for a story about a Pirandello-like theme:

"...the study of a woman, the difference between what she appears to be and what she is: appearance vs reality...[the more I thought about the character] the more I wanted to play her. Here was the kind of nifty, multifaceted part I'd been looking for. So instead of a short story, I wrote it as a film."

Mimieux wrote a thriller, which she took to producers Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg, who then produced it for ABC as a television film. It aired as Hit Lady (1974).

In 1975, Mimieux starred in The Legend of Valentino, in which she played Rudolph Valentino's second wife, Natacha Rambova, and she the Canadian thriller Journey into Fear. In 1976, Mimieux made a pilot for a TV sitcom based on Bell, Book and Candle, but it was not picked up.

Later movies

Mimieux was a falsely imprisoned woman victimized by a sadistic guard in the film Jackson County Jail (1976) with Tommy Lee Jones for New World Pictures, which was a box-office hit.

Mimieux was in some horror-oriented TV movies, Snowbeast (1977), Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell (1978), and Disaster on the Coastliner (1979). She also did the TV movies Ransom for Alice! (1977) and Outside Chance (1978).

Later, Mimieux co-starred in the first PG-rated Walt Disney Productions feature, The Black Hole (1979). She had the lead in Circle of Power (1981).

Mimieux was in the TV movie Forbidden Love (1982) and Night Partners (1983) and guest-starred on The Love Boat and Lime Street.

Mimieux made Obsessive Love (1984), a television film about a female stalker which she co-wrote and co-produced:

"There are few enough films going these days, and there are three or four women who are offered all the good parts. Of course I could play a lot of awful parts that are too depressing to contemplate.... [Television] is not the love affair I have with film, but television can be a playground for interesting ideas. I love wild, baroque, slightly excessive theatrical ideas, and because television needs so much material, there's a chance to get some of those odd ideas done."

Mimieux had the lead in Berrenger's (1985), a short-lived TV series and had a supporting role in the TV movie The Fifth Missile (1986).

Mimieux guest-starred in a TV movie Perry Mason: The Case of the Desperate Deception (1990). Her last film was Lady Boss (1992).

Personal life and death

Mimieux married Evan Harland Engber on December 19, 1959, but kept the marriage secret for almost two years. She was married to film director Stanley Donen from 1972 until their divorce in 1985, and then to Howard F. Ruby, chairman emeritus and founder of Oakwood Worldwide.

Mimieux died from natural causes at her home in Los Angeles on January 17, 2022, at the age of 80.

Filmography

• A Certain Smile (1958) - (uncredited)
• Platinum High School (1960) - Lorinda Nibley
• The Time Machine (1960) - Weena
• Where the Boys Are (1960) - Melanie Tolman
• The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962) - Chi Chi Desnoyers
• Light in the Piazza (1962) - Clara Johnson
• The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962) - The Princess ('The Dancing Princess')
• Diamond Head (1962) - Sloane Howland
• Toys in the Attic (1963) - Lily Berniers
• Looking for Love (1964) - Yvette Mimieux
• Joy in the Morning (1965) - Annie Brown née McGairy
• The Reward (1965) - Sylvia
• Monkeys, Go Home! (1967) - Maria Riserau
• The Caper of the Golden Bulls (1967) - Grace Harvey
• Dark of the Sun (1968) - Claire
• Three in the Attic (1968) - Tobey Clinton
• The Picasso Summer (1969) - Alice Smith
• The Delta Factor (1970) - Kim Stacy
• Skyjacked (1972) - Angela Thacher
• The Neptune Factor (1973) - Dr. Leah Jansen
• Journey Into Fear (1975) - Josette
• Jackson County Jail (1976) - Dinah Hunter
• The Black Hole (1979) - Dr. Kate McCrae
• Circle of Power (1981) - Bianca Ray
• The Fascination (1985)
• The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal (1985, documentary) - Weena (in The Time Machine) (archive footage)

Television work

• Yancy Derringer (1959, Episode: "Collector's Item") - Ricky
• Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond (1960, Episode: "The Clown") - Nonnie Regan
• Mr. Lucky (1960, Episode: "Stacked Deck") - Margot
• Dr. Kildare (1964, 2 episodes) - Pat Holmes
• The Desperate Hours (1967, TV movie) - Cindy Hilliard
• The Most Deadly Game (1970–1971) - Vanessa Smith
• Death Takes a Holiday (1971, TV movie) - Peggy Chapman
• Black Noon (1971, TV movie) - Deliverance
• Hit Lady (1974, TV movie) - Angela de Vries
• The Legend of Valentino (1975, TV movie) - Natacha Rambova
• Bell, Book and Candle (1976, TV movie) - Gillian Holroyd
• Snowbeast (1977, TV movie) - Ellen Seberg
• Ransom for Alice! (1977, TV movie) - Jenny Cullen
• Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell (1978, TV movie) - Betty Barry
• Outside Chance (1978, TV movie) - Dinah Hunter
• Disaster on the Coastliner (1979, TV movie) - Paula Harvey
• Forbidden Love (1982, TV movie) - Joanna Bittan
• Night Partners (1983, TV movie) - Elizabeth McGuire
• The Love Boat (1984, Episode: "Hong Kong Affair") - Leni Martek
• Obsessive Love (1984, TV movie) - Linda Foster
• Berrenger's (1985, canceled after 12 episodes) - Shane Bradley
• The Fifth Missile (1986, TV movie) - Cheryl Leary
• Perry Mason: The Case of the Desperate Deception (1990, TV movie) - Danielle Altmann
• Lady Boss (1992, TV Series) - Deena Swanson (final appearance)

Recordings

• The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm 1962 (MGM Records), as The Dancing Princess
• Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil (Les Fleurs Du Mal) 1968 (Connoisseur Society), reading excerpts of Cyril Scott's 1909 translation with music by Ali Akbar Khan