Mag Bodard was born Marguerite Perato in Turin in 1916. She joined France at the age of 6 with her parents, who settled in Normandy. His first professional experience will be journalism. For eight years, she is a correspondent of Elle magazine in Indochina, where she meets the reporter and soon writer Lucien Bodard, who becomes his first husband. On her return to France, she was one of the instigators of Five Columns in the News (1959), the leading news magazine in the history of French television, before being ousted from the project - to the profit, between others, from his second companion, the journalist Pierre Lazareff.
Agrandissement : Illustration 1
A little out of spite, many by defiance, Mag Bodard then decides to embark on the cinematographic production, domain then almost exclusively reserved for the men. His first film, La Gamberge, by Norbert Carbonnaux (1962), with his great friend Françoise Dorléac, fell into oblivion. Not the second ... This little bit of very chic woman with the will of steel moves heaven and earth to finance the crazy project of a young director Nantes, a movie fully sung with unknown actors who has terrified all other producers. We know the song: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg Jacques Demy gets the Golden Palm at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival, draws the crowds and makes Catherine Deneuve a star.
"The only thing I hate and hate is being in front. Behind, I am very strong because I see more clearly, I know what I'm worth. "
Mag Bodard earns her reputation as a producer who accepts projects that all her colleagues refuse. With this mantra, developed many years later in a book of interviews with one of his disciples, Philippe Martin (1): "I knew that I could bring to anyone what it takes to go a lot further, I have always had this form of pride. The only thing I hate and hate is being in front. Behind, I am very strong because I see more clearly, I know what I'm worth. "
Les grands films s’enchaînent avec les plus grands : Jean-Luc Godard (Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle, La Chinoise), Robert Bresson (Au hasard Balthazar, Mouchette, Une femme douce), Alain Resnais (Je t’aime, je t’aime, injustement boudé par le public), Michel Deville (Benjamin ou les mémoires d’un puceau, Raphaël ou le débauché), Agnès Varda (Le Bonheur, Les créatures) et, bien sûr, Jacques Demy pour deux nouveaux succès, Les demoiselles de Rochefort et Peau d’âne. Mag Bodard met aussi le pied à l’étrier à Maurice Pialat (L’Enfance nue, 1968) puis à Claude Miller (La Meilleure façon de marcher, 1975).
In the 70s, she gradually abandoned the cinema to turn to television. His speciality ? The great romantic sagas in costume of her faithful accomplice Nina Companeez, The Ladies of the Coast (which revealed Fanny Ardant in 1979) or The Alley of the King, superb biopic of Madame de Maintenon who made the rich audiences of the public television in from 1995. Mag Bodard retired at age 90 after a last television movie, L'Inconnue de la départementale (2006), by Didier Bivel.