Maïté, pioneer of television cooking, died at the age of 86

Her face, her accent and her cheekiness made her famous in the 80s and especially the 90s. A figure in public service cooking, at a time when television was not yet transforming chefs into stars, Maïté died in the night from Friday to Saturday at the age of 86, according to AFP, confirming information from the Actu Landes site.

In recent years, the former host of “La Cuisine des Mousquetaires” lived in a nursing home in Rion-des-Landes, the mayor of the town told the press agency. She returned there to take care of her restaurant after moving away from the small screen at the turn of the 2000s.

Born in Rion-des-Landes, a town of 3,000 inhabitants in Landes, Maïté, whose real name is Marie-Thérèse Ordonez, was in no way intended to do television. First a good girl in her youth, she then became an announcer for the SNCF for more than two decades, a job that has now disappeared, which consisted of playing the trumpet to warn railway workers of the passage of a train. !

At the same time, she gets involved with her village’s rugby team by cooking. And it was while filming a report on the players, in 1983, that director Patrice Bellot discovered this woman with an assertive personality. Neither one nor two, he praises the merits of the cook, who catches the eye of the management of FR3 Aquitaine.

With Micheline Banzet-Lawton, a shock duo

A few weeks later, the SNCF announcer turned into a television host to launch “La cuisine des mousquetaires”, a weekly meeting in which Maïté, 45 years old at the time, got behind the stove to prepare a recipe in front of viewers in the company of Micheline Banzet-Lawton, then host on France Musique, who died in 2020. La Landaise and la Parisienne, a shock duo who delight viewers. First at the local level, then from 1991 on the national branches of Trois.

The two women, although so different on paper, shine with their complicity. With a Maïté not hesitating to use the harsh method, notably in June 1992 when the cook had to prepare an eel… still alive. Aided by a mortar pestle, directly, she then begins to knock out the animal several times. The sequence amuses part of the public, shocks another, but immediately becomes cult.

The adventure continued until 1997, and brought significant notoriety to Rionnaise. The director Camille de Casabianca even decided to entrust him with the leading role in the comedy “The Fabulous Destiny of Madame Petlet”, released in theaters in July 1995. Alongside Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Michèle Laroque and Gérard Hernandez, the host plays a country woman turned nanny to a television writer’s family, who begins to plunder her story.

The reviews are very positive: “a film full of life and vitality” for “Télérama”, “a generous presence which bursts the screen” for the neo-actress according to “Le Figaro”… Even the American magazine “Variety” goes for his compliments! The public, for its part, shunned the film, with barely more than 30,000 admissions.

Star of commercials

With the end of the 1990s, when she celebrated her sixtieth birthday in 1998, Maïté gradually disappeared from the screens. Following the end of “La cuisine des mousquetaires” in 1997, she returned for two years to a similar show, “A table”, still on France 3. Before becoming the star of advertising spots for Bonux laundry detergent, with the replica that has become cult “It doesn’t say woodcock here!” ”, but also Rondelé cheese, his “favorite”.

In the 2000s, the Landaise made some sometimes surprising appearances, such as in the confinement reality show “Nice People” on TF1, where she spent a week with the candidates under the eye of the cameras, in the company of Diana, ex-participant. from “Temptation Island”! Occasionally, she responds to the press and requests for documentaries, before enjoying her retirement in Rion-des-Landes.

However, destiny is against her: in 2013, her only son Serge died of cancer, leaving two daughters behind. Then two years later, she experienced the liquidation of her restaurant in Rion. Maïté’s name suddenly came back in 2018 when her granddaughter, Camille Ordonez, appeared in the “Objectif Top Chef” competition on M6, then four years later as a witness in “It begins today” with Faustine Bollaert on France 2, to talk about his grandmother.