Princess Daisy (miniseries)

Mistral's Daughter: (2/4)

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• published: 23 Jan 2015
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Part1: http://youtu.be/iiRxvPO79RA Part3: http://youtu.be/k0O03Afr0TQ Part4: http://youtu.be/N_vvUSod2Dk Beautiful and naïve Maggy Lunel arrives in Paris completely broke. She becomes an artist's model and the toast of Paris, attracting the attention of Picasso-like painter Julien Mistral, an arrogant and selfish man who places his work above everything. Their paths diverge as Mistral's art catches the eye of a rich American woman who becomes his patroness and eventually his wife. During the war years in France, Mistral collaborates with the Nazis in order to continue with his work, a decision that will come back to haunt him years later. In the meantime, Maggy has a daughter named Teddy who grows up and falls in love with Mistral with whom she has a child named Fauve. As Mistral ages, he comes to terms with his selfish past and wartime betrayal through his art, leaving a beautiful legacy for his daughter, Fauve. The Mistral story begins in 1925 in Paris. There is no doubt about the setting because an accordion can be heard playing while Jean Sablon sings, in French, ''April in Paris.'' Maggy is played by Stefanie Powers, a beautiful actress in her early 40's. Walking around a Montmartre neighborhood, which features saucy young women swinging their hips in classic operetta fashion, Maggy wants to become an artists' model. Enter Mistral, in flowing hair and a cape, played with a certain intense je ne sais quoi by Stacy Keach. He takes the shy country bumpkin home to pose for him. That is the beginning of a story that will tempestuously involve Mistral with Maggy, her daughter Teddy (Stephanie Dunnam) and her granddaughter Fauve (Philippine Leroy Beaulieu). The only other major character is Kate, an American heiress of ''considerable wealth'' who manages to take Mistral away from Maggy, marry him and bear him a daughter whom, with unerring instinct, he loathes. Kate is portrayed to fresh-faced clawing perfection by Lee Remick. The more important marginal characters include Madame Paula (Stephane Audran), the former model who befriends Maggy, offering the practical advice that the artist needs her as much as she needs him. And then there is Avigdor (Ian Richardson), the art dealer who, on first seeing Mistral's work, observes that ''he has found a style but he has not yet found something more important - passion.'' That's where Maggie will come in. When a heartbroken Maggy loses Mistral to the scheming Kate, she finds herself being wooed by the wealthy Perry Kilkullen (Timothy Dalton), a dashing Irish-American banker who wants to console her with ''diamond bracelets up to your shoulders and chinchilla to the floor.'' The Irish, Perry explains, are scrappy and love a good fight, adore beautiful women and will do anything for justice and freedom. Maggy and Perry are very happy together and they have a daughter, the one called Teddy, but there is a bit of trouble in paradise. Perry's Irish- Catholic wife in New York is not keen on giving him a divorce. As she puts it in one of her more reasonable moments, ''You and your bastard disgust me - may you all rot in hell!'' Moving to America, Maggy and her daughter unexpectedly find themselves alone and penniless. But not to worry. Trying to sell her jewelry, Maggy uses a Yiddish colloquialism not usually considered ''respectable'' in casual conversation. The previously cold jeweler looks at her warmly and asks, ''You're a Jewish girl?'' Assured that this is so, he says, ''I have a friend in the fashion business, you want I should call him?'' And from there, needless to say, Maggy goes on to establish the most successful modeling agency in the world. Meanwhile, Mistral is becoming more successful and more vile. He collaborates with the Nazis to get paints and canvases for his work. He refuses to help his dealer Avigdor, who is Jewish and fleeing from the German troops. These are the transgressions he will have to atone for in the last part of the story, and, sure enough, his paintings, which started out looking like rip-offs of Lautrec and Van Gogh, end up in the distinctive style of Chagall. Mistral has found true love with Teddy (He: ''I've been waiting for you forever.'' She: ''You make me feel alive.'') and their child Fauve will become the true Mistral's daughter while the thwarted Kate will scream, ''May you fry in everlasting hell.'' Fauve will fall in love with Avigdor's son, who, upon hearing her use the word chutzpah, asks in all sincerity, ''Where'd you learn Hebrew?'' Maggy wonders if this isn't a case of history repeating itself. The directors of ''Mistral's Daughter'' are Douglas Hickox and Kevin Connor. The script was put together by Rosemary Anne Sisson and Terence Feely. The sumptuously gaudy production is said to have cost $15 million. Judith Krantz (Judith Tarcher) -born on January 9, 1928-is a Jewish-American novelist who writes in the romance genre. Her works include Scruples, Princess Daisy, and Till We Meet Again.