Yvette Mimieux was found dead Tuesday morning, her family confirmed. On January 8, she had just turned 80 and died naturally in her sleep.
Mimieux was a prolific actress, best known for starring with Rod Taylor at MGM in a 1960 film version of the HG Wells novel Time Machine directed by George Parr, and she quickly secured a long-term contract. A few months later, it was another success in "Where are the Boys". Other works of her time included "Platinum High School", "Mr. Lucky", "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" and "Square Lights".
The latter received strong reviews for playing a mentally retarded girl, when she said: "I thought I had an affectionate quality. I was often portrayed as a wounded person, a 'sensitive' character. She played Dean Martin's adoptive daughter-in-law in the 1963 film Toys in the Attic and collaborated with director Serge Bourguignon in the films Rewards and Picasso's Summer.
Yvette Mimieux died at the age of 80. (ABC, from Getty Images)
She will take a detour and make a cameo appearance in two episodes of the Richard Chamberlain series "Dr. Kieldale." She plays a surfer with epilepsy and is the first person on American television to show her belly button. She will go on to star in "The Deadliest Game," a 1970 series by Aaron Spelling for ABC in which she replaced Inger Stevens, who died a month before production began. Mimier later wrote a thriller for Spelling and Leonard, who made a television film for ABC in 1974, Hit Lady. She played a ruthless assassin in the TV series.
Yvette Mimieux in "Death Leave". (Disney's general entertainment content from Getty Images)
Mimieux is a woman with a wide range of interests, and in addition to writing, she retired from show business and began selling Haitian products, traveling, studying archaeology and selling real estate. Not surprisingly, she lamented the roles that an actress like her could take on in the '70s. "The women they write about are all one-dimensional," she said. "There's no complexity in their lives. It's all superficial. Nothing to play with. They are either sexual objects or vanilla pudding. ”
Yvette Mimieux died of natural causes at the age of 80. (Disney's general entertainment content from Getty Images)
She continued to work until her retirement in 1992 after her last turnaround in the 1992 TV movie "Lady Boss." Along the way, she married Evan Harland Engebo and later married and divorced director Stanley Donan 13 years later. Her husband, Howard F. Ruby, has been married to her for 36 years and is the honorary chairman and founder of Oakwood Universal. They don't have children.
There will be no memorial service. Mimier kept her personal life very secret during her lifetime, and after her death.
Edit: Chihiro Takashi ins