Dominique Lavanant, actress of 'Papy makes resistance', 'Les Bronzés' and 'Soeur Thérèse.com' remains cult and timeless... Here are her secrets.

She made herself known to the general public thanks to the Splendid troupe, Dominique Lavanant , emblematic actress of French comic cinema, turns 78 on May 24, 2022.

Dominique Lavanant: orphan at 2 years old, with nuns as a teenager

After having lived a complicated childhood, the famous beautician of tanned finds refuge in a passion: the comedy. ' My dad died when I was 2 . We lived for a long time with my mother and my brother, without a penny. (…) We were in isolation, sadness. She remarried when I was 11, to the cardiologist from Morlaix, someone absolutely wonderful - but who committed suicide thirty years ago... I spent a year in a preventorium. When I came back, at 12, there was a man in the house, and a little sister. Total change of scenery', she said to Tele Obs.

Then Dominique Lavanant to tell Télé-Loisirs: 'At Les Filles de la Croix, in England, I discovered the convent and these gay, naive women... and never alone, in fact. They fascinated me so much that I almost became a good sister! '

After seven years in the Perfidious Albion, Dominique Lavanant flies to Paris out of love, and plunged into the world of theatre, where she joined the troop of the Splendid next to Gerard Jugnot, Josiane Balasko or Christian Clavier.

Dominique Lavanant: Les Bronzés, success and break with the Splendid

His first big hit? Grandpa resists in 1983, where she played the mythical Bernadette Bourdelle, daughter of 'La Bourdelle', played by Jacqueline Maillan, and André Bourdelle, conductor played by Jean Carmet. A great role that propels her straight to center stage and makes her a essential face of the comic heritage hexagonal. 

But it is especially with the cult saga The Bronzed that Dominique Lavanant and his little band enter the hearts of the French. If she agrees in the 2000s to participate in the Tanned 3 , she admits, the strong friendship that bound them so much flew away a long time ago. 'When I'm rejected, it's not my principle to run after people. At Le Splendid, my roles have shrunk as time has passed. And then more friendship. There was no emotion at all. There was nothing left' , she confided bluntly to Tele Obs. And add to France Evening : ' This is my worst filming memory , it was so horrible that I cried. In the eyes of the elders of the Splendid, I was nothing. Just a rookie against old friends.'

Dominique Lavanant: her last role in Soeur Thérèse.com

If she gives up the cinema, Dominique Lavanant made a remarkable entry on the small screen in 2002 with the series Sister Therese.com on TF1 . The actress plays the character of a detective nun alongside her ex-husband, Captain Gérard Bonaventure played by Martin Lamotte. A fiction that also oddly echoes his past. ' Nuns have been a part of my life, from 14 to 21 . My great-great-aunt founded the order of the Daughters of the Cross, in Plestin-les-Grèves, in Brittany. (...) Like any self-respecting provincial bourgeoise, I went there during my adolescence...' she told France Evening.

The former accomplice of Josiane Balasko has completely disappeared from the screens and his media appearances are very rare. It was in August 2019, on the occasion of the funeral of his great friend of director Jean-Pierre Mocky, that the movie star was seen for the last time...

Source journaldesfemmes.fr