Rnothing predestined her to become a star of the small screen. Like Raymond Oliver (and his son Michel), or even Jean-Pierre Coffe, Maïté was one of the great figures of French television thanks to her culinary show The Kitchen of the Musketeersbroadcast for almost twenty years on FR3, the ancestor of France 3. She died this Saturday, December 21, at the age of 86, as revealed by our colleagues at Actu Landes. Information confirmed by the mayor of Rion-des-Landes to France 3.
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To tell the truth, it was by chance that she began her career as a host in 1984, at the age of 45. Because Maïté, whose real name is Marie-Thérèse Ordonez, born June 2, 1938 in Rion-des-Landes, had started at… SNCF. “Her parents worked for the railway company, her husband too,” confides Francis Léglise, a neighbor, who became a friend of the family. “Site manager, she played the bugle there, at the edge of the tracks, to warn her teams of the arrival of the trains,” adds Gilbert Lassalle, former coach of the local rugby club: the Jeunesse sportive rionnaise (JSR).
It is thanks to this club, of which his son, Serge, was a member, that his destiny will be turned upside down. Maïté plays, in fact, the role of canteen for the JSR players on match days. “She had no equal when it came to boosting the morale of the players on losing evenings: she was a real tease,” recalls Gilbert Lassalle. His cuisine, rustic and invigorating, is so appreciated by young rugby players that they encourage him to open his own restaurant. But she doubts herself and postpones this project until later.
A career born thanks to rugby
On the evening of the final of the “honor” French championship, when the club had just moved up to the third division, her path crossed that of Patrice Bellot, a television director from, like her, the South-West. It was he who had the idea of a cooking show of which she would be the host. It will be La Cuisine des Mousquetaires. In the spring of 1983, the tandem she formed with producer Micheline Banzet arrived on television. Maïté's spontaneity and singing accent, which reflects her Landes origins, quickly won over the audience. The show was a great success.
ALSO READ “The kitchen of the musketeers of Maïté”: but what was L214 doing? It must be said that Maïté has a talent like no other. In an audiovisual landscape that is still very smooth and largely sanitized, the forty-year-old stands out. “She says what she does live on television, she is without filter,” explains Patrice Bellot, who will produce 500 shows until 1995.
The daily show, filmed in the France 3 Aquitaine studios, will be replaced by a weekly meeting, presented solo this time, At the tableuntil 1999. Maïté also multiplies the editions of cookbooks. Its first three volumes sold more than 120,000 copies.
Huge popularity
Host at Sud Radio then actress (she will appear in half a dozen feature films and TV films, even taking on the title role of Fabulous Destiny of Madame Petlet by Camille de Casabianca, with Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Michèle Laroque), she will end her career as an advertising muse. In the 2000s, she was recruited by various brands to become their ambassador: Rondelé cheeses and, above all, Bonux laundry detergent. Maïté then becomes an icon. Her leitmotif “There is no written “woodcock” here”, which she pronounced while pointing to her forehead, will even be taken up by a puppet in her likeness in THEInfo sourceson Canal+.
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In the meantime, she ended up opening, at the dawn of the 2000s, a restaurant in her hometown, offering cuisine in her image (full of joie de vivre, warm and without fuss). On his menu, where duck and foie gras predominate, a famous coq au vin and stuffed quail feature prominently… But management is not his strong suit. Working with family, Maïté was forced to close the doors of her establishment, which went into liquidation in April 2015. “She gave up the business after the death of her son in 2013,” relatives confided.
Regardless, his posterity is enormous. A number of vocations as cooks were thus born in front of the small screen between two bursts of laughter from Maïté. Starting with that of her granddaughter: Camille Ordonez, revealed in November 2018 by the program Top Chef.
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