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Simone Signoret: Yves Montand
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Born in Germany to French parents, "Simone Signoret" was raised in Paris. While working with the Free French patriotic organization during WWII, she entered films as an extra in British wartime productions. Through the auspices of her first husband, director Yves Allegret, Signoret was given the "star build-up" in the postwar years. One of the best of her unlucky-in-love characterizations was in "Casque D'Or" (1952), for which she won a British Film Industry award. Signoret went on to win an Oscar for her portrayal of "Laurence Harvey"'s tragic castaway mistress in "Room at the Top" (1959). Her second husband was "Yves Montand". Maturing into a plump but still bewitching character actress, Signoret continued appearing in choice film roles until 1982.
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Born in Germany to French nationals, Signoret was reared from the age of two in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a suburb of Paris, where she led a sheltered middle-class existence. As a teenager she began to frequent the Café de Flore, a popular meeting place for leftist artists and intellectuals. There she befriended, among others, writer Jacques Prévert and film director Yves Allégret (whom she later married) and decided to become an actress. Unable to obtain an official work permit because her father was Jewish, she took her mother's maiden name, Signoret, as her professional name and worked primarily as a motion picture extra during the Nazi occupation of France. After World War II she soon graduated to featured roles, typically portraying prostitutes and lovelorn young women in films such as Allégret's Les Démons de l'aube (1945; “The Demons of Dawn”) and Macadam (1946). She became a star in France playing the title role, another sympathetic prostitute, in Allégret's Dédée d'Anvers (1948; Dedee).
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Signoret began her acting career as an extra in French films during World War II. With a style that blends intelligence and sensuality, she eventually achieved international fame for her role in the British film Room at the Top (1959), for which she won an Academy Award . She was nominated again for her performance in Ship of Fools (1965). Her second husband was the actor/singer Yves Montand, and they costarred in numerous films. She made her last screen appearance in L'Etoile du Nord (1982).
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François Chalais interviews Simone Signoret about her life with Yves Montand and her career: she shot in Mexico and Germany. She filmed an English movie, "A Room at the Top" because she found it to be a good story. She explains the dual meaning of the title. The film is based on a novel that was very successful in England. She does not feel like a movie star and explains why. "To be a big star like Sophia LOREN, it is a full-time job; I would not know how to do that well, it is a profession that must be learned."
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