Known for the Petit Conservatoire de la chanson, which she founded and revealed to renowned artists, Mireille is an author, composer, performer and teacher whose vast repertoire has left several classics, including "Couchés dans le foin" and "Puisque vous partez en voyage". Born in Paris on September 30, 1906, to an English mother and a Polish father, Mireille Hartuch learned to play the piano at the age of four, and grew up in an artistic environment with an interest in theater. During her youth spent in London, she worked in silent films and theater, before singing for the soldiers during her father's arrest in the Second World War, returning to France to teach piano and return to the stage, where she began working in operetta. A complete artist, Mireille moved from one art form to another. With Jean Nohain, whom she had met in 1928, she formed a songwriting and composition duo, which met with great success in the music-hall world. In the 1930s, she formed her own troupe to perform in the United States, returning in 1937 to marry writer and philosopher Emmanuel Berl. She had already made a name for herself with "Couchés dans le foin" in 1932, and sang duets with Maurice Chevalier, Charles Trenet and Jean Sablon ("Puisque vous partez en voyage"). In 1948, she was back on the radio with Du côté de chez Mireille, hosting the crème de la crème of the song, theater and film worlds. In 1955, she founded Le Petit Conservatoire, whose courses were broadcast on the airwaves and then on television, where between 1960 and 1975 she introduced artists such as Hugues Aufray, Daniel Prévost, Jean-Jacques Debout, Pascal Sevran, Johnny Hallyday and Françoise Hardy. After singing in Christiné's operetta Phi-Phi, she lent her voice to the cartoon Colargol and Prokofiev's musical tale Peter and the Wolf. Later, Mireille continued to teach through her own private course, aimed at both young talent and established artists. Although her output of over six hundred songs was widely distributed on 78-turn records, she recorded only a handful of albums, including Les Succès de Mireille et de Jean Nohain (1954), Mireille Chante Mireille (1961), then Aujourd'hui (1975), and it was through compilations that her repertoire has stood the test of time. She returned to the stage, giving a final concert at the Théâtre de Chaillot shortly before her death on December 29, 1996, at the age of 90.
