The actor’s remarkable life fed into the character of Arlette in the Netflix hit, from growing up Jewish in occupied France, via Left Bank jazz and a relationship with Chet Baker, to global fame in her 80s
If you’re an actor in the rare position of becoming internationally famous in your 80s, then it’s rather fitting to achieve it with a role that ripely resembles you. In recent years the world has come to know the veteran French actor Liliane Rovère as Arlette Azémar, the seasoned “impresario” – as she prefers to be known – in the French TV series Dix Pour Cent, AKA Call My Agent!. The show has become a global hit on Netflix, and Arlette has struck a chord as everyone’s ideal disreputable aunt with a repertoire of outrageous stories that she just might tell if the burgundy is flowing. She is the sly, sharp-tongued doyenne of top Paris talent agency ASK, who knows where the bodies are buried, and just when to dig them up.
It is easy to imagine that Arlette is Rovère. You can just see Arlette reading Nietzsche while listening to Charlie Parker and smoking a joint – and if you dip into Rovère’s 2019 memoir, La Folle Vie de Lili, you’ll see that she depicts herself doing just that on the first page. Likewise, it came as no surprise in season two to learn that Arlette had supposedly had a youthful romance with jazz legend Chet Baker – a plotline that also came directly from Rovère’s own “wild life”.
