Arielle Dombasle
Arielle Dombasle at the 2000 César Awards ceremony
Born	Arielle Laure Maxime Sonnery (1958-04-27) April 27, 1958 (age 54) Norwich, Connecticut, U.S.
Occupation	Actress, singer
Years active	1978–present
Spouse	Philippe Albou (1976–1985) Bernard-Henri Lévy (1993–present)
Website
Official website

Arielle Dombasle (born April 27, 1958) is a French-American singer, actress, director and model. Her breakthrough roles were in Éric Rohmer's Pauline at the Beach (1983) and Alain Robbe-Grillet's The Blue Villa (1995). She is best known to American audiences for her appearances on Miami Vice and the 1984 miniseries Lace. She has released eight singles between 1978 and 2011 and seven albums.

Childhood and origins

She was born Arielle Laure Maxime Sonnery de Fromental in Norwich, Connecticut, the daughter of Jean-Louis Melchior Sonnery de Fromental, a silk manufacturer, and Francion Garreau-Dombasle. She is part of a significant French-American immigrants in Mexico under her grand father diplomatic tenure. Dombasle family's surname was created in 1912, when Dombasle's grandfather René Sonnery (1887–1925), an industrialist from Lyon, married Anne-Marie Berthon du Fromental. In memory of her mother who died at the age of 36, Arielle Sonnery, she took the pseudonym of "Arielle Dombasle".

She and her brother Gilbert were raised in Mexico by their maternal grandparents after their mother's death in 1964. She was also raised at Château de Chaintré, the Sonnery family estate near Saumur, Maine et Loire. Her maternal grandfather, Maurice Garreau-Dombasle, was a close friend of and advisor to Charles de Gaulle and served as the French ambassador to Mexico. Her maternal grandmother was Man'Ha Dombasle (née Germaine Massenet, 1898–1999), a writer and poet who translated Rabindranath Tagore's works into French and was a longtime friend of the science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, who dedicated his 1972 novel The Halloween Tree to her.

Career

Claude Lelouch and Arielle Dombasle

Dombasle embarked on a singing career and acting after attending the Conservatoire international de musique de Paris¹ and further studies in Mexico.²

She has appeared in several Hollywood English-language productions, but most of her acting work has been in French, as are her albums. She also has directed and written the scripts for two films, Les Pyramides Bleues and Chassé-croisé. Renowned for her beauty, she has described her looks as "a Crazy Horse dancing girl",³ a reference to the famous cabaret in Paris.

Personal life

She is the third wife of French philosopher and writer Bernard-Henri Lévy. They were married on June 19, 1993 at Saint-Paul-de-Vence on the Côte d'Azur where they have a villa. She has two stepchildren, Antonin-Balthazar Lévy and Justine Lévy, a novelist. She was previously married to Dr. Paul Albou, described by Vanity Fair as a "Jewish playboy society dentist 32 years her senior."²

Her brother, Gilbert Sonnery (aka Gilbert Sonnery Garreau), is a textile executive, having been chairman of J. B. Martin Ltée and vice chairman of the French holding company MRM.

Filmography

Television

• X Femmes, Season 1, Episode 1. Director and actress.

Discography

Singles

• Cantate 78 (1978)
• Je te salue mari (1980)
• Nada más (1988) single
• Amour symphonique (1990)
• Liberta (2000)
• Odysseus (2000)
• Où Tu Veux (2007)
• Extra-terrestre (2009)
• Hasta siempre (2010)
• Porque te vas (2011)

Albums

• Liberta (2000)
• Extase (2002)
• Amor Amor (2004)
• Arielle en concert (2005) DVD
• C'est si bon (2006)
• Glamour à mort (2009)
• Diva Latina (2011)

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Arielle Dombasle

• Official web site
• Arielle Dombasle at the Internet Movie Database
• Arielle Dombasle at AllRovi
• Profile at Canal+ (French)