Beside Michèle Mercier who played the title role, the actor formed a fictional couple who made the hearts of the public beat faster for five films released throughout along the decade 310.
The plot takes place under Louis XIV. Angelique wife to 15 years old the rich Count of Peyrac, scarred, lame but also older than her. An age gap with which the actor is familiar in his life. At the time when he slips into the character’s costume for the first time, Robert Hossein has 20 years and he married two years earlier Caroline Eliacheff, just 15 years.
“Casanova pour midinettes”
The “Angélique” saga elevates Robert Hossein to the rank of sex symbol, which will earn him the later carted by Marguerite Duras who will qualify him as “Don Juan de bazaar ”or of “ Casanova pour midinettes ”. The actor will not find a more prominent role in the French collective imagination thereafter. The multiple reruns of films on television made him inseparable from Joffrey de Peyrac.
Far from denying Angélique, marquise des angels
, he adapted the scenario into a musical comedy in 1995 at the Palais des Sports.
We almost forget that at the beginning, the films are adapted from the literary saga in thirteen volumes signed Anne Golon . The novels have been translated into around 30 languages and sold around 100 million copies worldwide. The author did not appreciate the way her work was brought to the screen. She considered these adaptations “misogynistic”, making Angélique a “little whore” or a “stupid” woman.