Mylene Gautier was born
on September the 12th 1961 at Pierrefonds; city
located around 20km away from Montreal. She is the youngest of 4 kids;
her father (max Gautier) is an engineer at the department of Civil
Engineering and worked on the Manicouagan dam construction site. Her
mother (Marguerite Martin) was a housewife. Surrounded by her brothers
and sisters, she was living in wealthy conditions. She is used to
saying that she only has a few memories of her childhood, mostly from
the snow and the maple syrup she used to eat. She was already very
found of animals and thought about becoming a veterinarian. She did not
make waves at school; she was a distant and shy student. In the early
70’s, the family moved back to France, in the city of Ville
d’Avray, which will be traumatic to Mylene. Isolated in the
grey environment of the Parisian suburbs, she had been missing her more
cheerful Canada. Mylene often went to the Hospital at Garches to visit
sick children. It seemed to comfort her. She then attended the horse
ridding classes at the Cadre Noir at Saumur. Then at 18 years old, on
September 14th 1979, she left high school two days after having started
studying humanities.
Mylene decided then to start an artistic career. She would start by
theater and enrolled at the famous Cours Florent and attended Daniel
Mesquish (comedian) classes. She played the role of Zezette directed by
her friend Thierry Mugler in the comedy “Le pere noel est une
ordure” (Santa Claus is a bastard). She made pocket money out
of temporary jobs as dentist or gynecologist assistant. She also tried
herself being a model or playing in advertising campaigns (IKEA,
Fiskars scissors, Le Chat soap or even the lottery). At the same time,
she built up her literature knowledge, reading Allan Edgar Poe
fantastic stories and Baudelaire poetry. It was at this time that she
met one of the most important person for her career: Laurent Boutonnat.
As a Pygmalion and for many years, he distributed and composed her
music and video clips. In 1984, they recorded her very first song
“Maman a tort” (my mum is wrong), a childish song
that met a quite honorable success.. This was when she abandoned her
name to become Mylene Farmer, from the actress Frances Farmer. The
latter died in a lunatic hospital because of her addiction to alcohol.
She released her song “Libertine” and her first
album “Cendres de Lune” (ashes from the moon),
which will be her first big hit.
In 1988, she released her second album “Ainsi
soit-je” (So be I) which was rewarded for being sold by more
that 1 800 000 copies. The song “Pourvu qu’elles
soient douces” (Be they sweet) was an extract from this
album. Its video clip amazed the French audience and more than 10 000
copies of the song were sold each day in December 1988 ! Thanks to this
video clip, she got the French music award “Victoires de la
musique”. She started then a tour around France, 80 shows et
sold all the tickets for her Parisian shows in 48 hours! A live album
had been recorded.
After resting for a couple of months, Mylene Farmer released the famous
single “Desenchantee” (disillusioned) before
selling more than 2 millions copies of her album
“L’autre” (the other).
4 songs were released from this album and then after, Luc Besson was
asked to produce the video clip « que mon
cœur lache » (My soul is slashed), before
her first best off was released. She would get for this video clip a
new award. She had been working on her first movie for months, directed
by Laurent Boutonnat and entitled “Giorgino. It was played
from the 5th of October 1994 but was not successful. This was the
team’s first failure. She would then retreat for a long
period of time to think about all of this and then recorded her fourth
album in California. She made a change in her image and in her music.
“Anamorphosee” is released in October 1995 and
became the most surprising album of her career with a new rock style
sound. This album sold at more than 1 million of copies; many singles
were extracted including the hymn for love “XXL”.
She toured for the second time and her 3 shows at Paris were completely
sold out. For the first time in France, her live album was sold at more
than 900.000 copies, a record in France! She sang along with Khaled the
Polnareff’s song “La poupee qui fait non”
(The doll that nodds no). Mylene Farmer went back to California with
Laurent Boutonnat to produce her fifth album with which she made many
surprises to her fans. A new Mylene Farmer returned, more colourful
than ever, in a video clip produced by Ching Siu Tung for the song
“Ame-stram-gram”. A new scandal is made when she
released her video clip for the song “Je te rends ton
amour” ( I give your love back). The video clip is censored,
for the second time in a career after her song “Beyond my
control”. She decided then to release the tape of her video
clip and give all benefits to a charity supporting the fight against
aids. She toured then all around France, all shows are sold out and she
even performed in Russia.
She made the song cover “L’histoire d’une
fee, c’est” (A Fairy tale is) for the
«Razmoket in Paris » movie (Rugrats) and
it was released in february 2001.
She made then a duet with Seal, an extract from her best of
“Les mots” (The words), released on November 27th
2001 which includes 3 new songs: “Les mots”,
“C’est une belle journee” and
“Pardonne-moi” (The words, It is a beautiful day
and Forgive me).
She would then get for the 4th time the Nrj Music Award for the best
French female singer in 2003.
While her fans are waiting for a new album, she offered an albums of
remixes from her songs made by the most prestigious DJs in the World.
It was only in april 2005 when she offered her 6th music album to her
fans « Avant que
l’ombre »(before the shadows…)
from which will be extracted the songs Fuck them all, QI, Redonne-moi,
L’amour n’est rien, Peut-etre toi ( Fuck them all,
IQ, Give me back, Love means nothing, Maybe it’s you). It was
sold by around 500 000 copies around France. She then did 13 sold out
shows only in Paris. She released the video from this concert on DVD
which became the most sold DVD in France. Her only hit at this time was
“slipping away”, a duet with Moby, none of her
singles reached such success.
Year 2006 in details, months by months- It
was a beautiful year (in french)
2007 is a year of silence. The only comfort for her fans is the
releasing of the DVD of “Girogino” from the first
time.
Year 2007 in details, months by
months-Shadow and Silence (in french)
In june 2008, Mylene sang “faut qu’ca
bouge” (You gotta move it) and it moves! Her two shows in
Paris at the French stadium got sold out in less of 3 hours. A record!
A day later, 100 000 tickets for her shows were sold in only one day.
Her fist single “Degeneration” became her 5th
number 1 in the French charts. A few months later, “Appelle
mon numero” becomes her 6th number 1 single. She is the
only artist to have got 6 songs number 1. On august 20th, her
seventh album, "Point de Suture" was released and reached as well
number one.
Year 2008 in details, months by months +
summary and reports (in french)
Biography in french