Sometimes romantic encounters don’t happen at the right time. This is what Macha Méril experienced with her great love, Michel Legrand. Because, if they said to themselves “oui” in 2014, their story was not a foregone conclusion. Guest on the show A Sunday in the countrysidebroadcast on France 2, the actress spoke of her meeting with the musician and composer, in Rio, in 1964, when he had just won the Palme d’Or for Umbrellas of Cherbourg and that she was one of the most promising actresses of her generation. It was love at first sight between them. “I think we know it right away when it’s true love”, she assures. There they pass “whole nights” together in the favelas, listening to music. However, they did not get closer since each was already a couple at the time.
“I put my hand on his, she remembers. It’s the only sex thing that ever happened between us.”. It was after four days that Michel Legrand admitted to him that he was married and had “two children, one of whom is young”. For her part, Macha Méril is engaged. Their paths separate. “We swore not to look for each othershe remembers. We avoided each other, because we knew that the slightest spark could cause… and I didn’t want to disturb this family. I’m not a husband stealer”. As the years go by, the actress has decided to put this story aside, without knowing that she was going to find Michel Legrand later.
⋙ Macha Méril & Michel Legrand: the wedding of their lives
Macha Méril and Michel Legrand: a love story delayed for 50 years
It was in 2013 that Macha Méril and Michel Legrand met. That year, the musician went to see her at the theater in Paris. After the performance, he said to her: “this time I’m marrying you”. “Michel had been ill, he was no longer the same. Nevertheless, under the 80-year-old man, I saw the young man,” she told in the columns of Paris Match. Happy and fulfilled, in her life as a single woman, Macha Méril did not hesitate for a second to tell him “oui”. Out of love, he went so far as to convert to his wife’s Orthodox religion. It was at that moment that the actress “understood something essential”to know : “Why I had always managed to run away from my men and put an end to my stories, even the strongest ones. I was waiting for Michel”.
Photo credits: Screenshot France 2