MGM Mimieux appeared in
George Pal's film version of
H. G. Wells's 1895 novel
The Time Machine (1960) starring
Rod Taylor, in which she played the character
Weena. It was made for
MGM, which put her under long-term contract. Her first film was
Platinum High School (1960), a low-budget teen crime drama produced by
Albert Zugsmith for MGM starring
Mickey Rooney and released two months before
The Time Machine. Her performance in
Platinum High School earned her a 1960
Golden Globe Awards nomination for "New Star Of The Year - Actress".
Arthur Freed wanted to team her and
George Hamilton in a remake of
The Clock, but it was not made. Mimieux had a central role in the romantic drama
Light in the Piazza (1962), playing a mentally disabled girl. The film paired her romantically with Hamilton. The film lost money, but was well regarded critically. She later said: "I suppose I have a soulful quality. I was often cast as a wounded person, the 'sensitive' role." In 1962, Mimieux was slated for a role in
A Summer Affair at MGM, but it was not made. Mimieux had a small part in Pal's
The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1963), another commercial disappointment. Later that year, she appeared in
Diamond Head (1963) with
Charlton Heston. Mimieux went to
United Artists for
Toys in the Attic, based on the play by
Lillian Hellman and co-starring
Geraldine Page and
Dean Martin. At MGM, Mimieux guest-starred on two episodes of
Dr. Kildare alongside
Richard Chamberlain in 1964. She played a surfer suffering from epilepsy, a performance that was much acclaimed and led to a 1965 Golden Globe nomination for "Best Actress In A Television Series". Mimieux did
The Desperate Hours (1967) for TV and was reunited with Rod Taylor in the MGM war movie
Dark of the Sun (1968). In 1968, she narrated a classical music concert at the
Hollywood Bowl. In 1968, Mimieux was top-billed in the sex comedy
Three in the Attic, a hit for AIP starring
Christopher Jones, and then appeared in the critically acclaimed 1969 movie
The Picasso Summer alongside
Albert Finney. In 1970, she was the female lead in
The Delta Factor, an action film co-starring
Christopher George.
Television '' (1974) Mimieux had one of the leads in
The Most Deadly Game (1970–1971), a short-lived television series from
Aaron Spelling. She replaced
Inger Stevens, who had been slated to star,— but died one month before production began. For this role, Mimieux was nominated for the 1971 Golden Globe Award for Best Television Actress — Drama Series. After making the television movies
Death Takes a Holiday (1971) and
Black Noon (1971), she sued her agent for not providing her with movie work despite having taken her money. Mimieux played the head stewardess in MGM's hostage thriller
Skyjacked (1972), starring
Charlton Heston and
James Brolin and was in the Fox science-fiction film
The Neptune Factor (1973). By the early 1970s, Mimieux was unhappy with the roles offered to actresses:The women they [male screenwriters] write are all one-dimensional. They have no complexity in their lives. It's all surface. There's nothing to play. They're either sex objects or vanilla pudding. Mimieux had been writing for several years before this film, mostly journalism and short stories. She had the idea for a story about a
Pirandello-like theme:the study of a woman, the difference between what she appears to be and what she is: appearance vs reality...[the more I thought about the character] the more I wanted to play her. Here was the kind of nifty, multifaceted part I'd been looking for. So instead of a short story, I wrote it as a film. Mimieux appeared in the TV movie
Forbidden Love (1982) and
Night Partners (1983) and guest-starred on
The Love Boat and
Lime Street. She made
Obsessive Love (1984), a television film about a female
stalker which she co-wrote and co-produced:There are few enough films going these days, and there are three or four women who are offered all the good parts. Of course I could play a lot of awful parts that are too depressing to contemplate.... [Television] is not the love affair I have with film, but television can be a playground for interesting ideas. I love wild, baroque, slightly excessive theatrical ideas, and because television needs so much material, there's a chance to get some of those odd ideas done. Mimieux had the lead in the short-lived TV series ''
Berrenger's (1985) and a supporting role in the TV movie The Fifth Missile (1986). She guest-starred in a TV movie Perry Mason: The Case of the Desperate Deception
(1990). Her last film was a supporting role in Lady Boss'' (1992). ==Personal life and death==