Background
She was born Arielle Laure Maxime Sonnery in Hartford, Connecticut, the daughter of Jean-Louis Melchior Sonnery de Fromental, a silk manufacturer, and Francion Garreau-Dombasle.
She was born Arielle Laure Maxime Sonnery in Hartford, Connecticut, the daughter of Jean-Louis Melchior Sonnery de Fromental, a silk manufacturer, and Francion Garreau-Dombasle.
She attended the Lycée Franco-Mexicain.
Her breakthrough roles were in Éric Rohmer"s Pauline at the Beach (1983) and Alain Robbe-Grillet"s The Blue Villa (1995). She is best known to American audiences for her appearances on Miami Vice and the 1984 miniseries Lace. She has released eight singles between 1978 and 2011 and seven albums.
The family"s surname was created in 1912, when Dombasle"s grandfather René Sonnery (1887–1925), an industrialist from Lyon, married Anne-Marie Berthon du Fromental.
Arielle took the pseudonym Arielle Dombasle in memory of her mother who died at the age of 36. She was also raised at Château de Chaintré, the Sonnery family estate near Saumur, Maine et Loire.
Dombasle embarked on a career as an actress and singer after attending the Conservatoire Internationale de Musique de Paris and further studies in Mexico. Dombasle has appeared in several Hollywood productions, but most of her acting work has been in French, as are her albums.
She directed and wrote the scripts for two films, Les Pyramides Bleues and Chassé-croisé.
She once described her own looks as "a Crazy Horse dancing girl".