- Born
- Died
- Birth nameHenriette Charlotte Simone Kaminker
- Height5′ 6″ (1.68 m)
- The face of Simone Signoret on the Paris Metro movie posters in March 1982 looked even older than her 61 years. She was still a box-office draw, but the film L'étoile du Nord (1982) would be her last theatrical release; she played the landlady. Signoret had a long film apprenticeship during World War II, mostly as an extra and occasionally getting to speak a single line. She worked without an official permit during the Nazi occupation of France because her father, who had fled to England, was Jewish. Working almost all the time, she made enough as an extra to support her mother and three younger brothers. Her breakthrough to international stardom came when she was 38 with the British film Room at the Top (1958). Her Alice Aisgill, an unhappily-married woman who hopes she has found true love, radiated real warmth in all of her scenes--not just the bedroom scenes. She was the same woman as Dedee, a prostitute who finds true love in Dedee (1948), a film directed by Signoret's first husband, Yves Allégret, a decade earlier. Hollywood beckoned throughout the 1950s, but both Signoret and her second husband, Yves Montand, were refused visas to enter the United States; their progressive political activities did not sit well with the ultra-conservative McCarthy-era mentality that gripped the US at the time. They got visas in 1960 so Montand, a singer, could perform in New York and San Francisco. They were in Los Angeles in March 1960 when Signoret received the Oscar for best actress and stayed on so Montand could play opposite Marilyn Monroe in Let's Make Love (1960). The Signoret film that is shown most often on TV and got a theatrical re-release in 1995, four decades after it was made is the French thriller Diabolique (1955). The chilly character Signoret plays is proof of her acting ability. More typical of her person is the countess in Ship of Fools (1965), a film that also starred Vivien Leigh ,which more than doubled its chances of being in a video-store or library film collection.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Dale O'Connor <[email protected]>
- SpousesYves Montand(December 22, 1951 - September 30, 1985) (her death)Yves Allégret(July 27, 1948 - February 23, 1951) (divorced, 1 child)
- Children
- RelativesBenjamin Castaldi(Grandchild)Julien Castaldi(Great Grandchild)
- Often played gold-hearted prostitutes
- Often played liberated women
- Heavy cigarette smoking
- Author of 'Adieu Volodia', a novel about a group of Jewish immigrants from Ukraine and Russia and their children, working in the theatre/film industry in Paris during the years 1926-1945.
- Signoret, her mother's maiden name, was chosen for films in the early 1940s to raise fewer questions with the Nazi authorities than her real surname Kaminker.
- The late American singer and composer Nina Simone took her stage name from Signoret.
- Buried in Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris with her husband Yves Montand.
- [Actor Philippe Noiret on working with Simone Signoret in a 1983 interview] It was quite an experience because she is a fabulous actress, because she knows absolutely everything about movies, about what an actor can do on the screen. It's a real challenge to have someone like that in front of you. But she is quite hard to work with because she wants to be at the head of everything, and you have to remain very alert because otherwise she can eat you. Alas, it makes things difficult. You have to stay a bit out of her reach because otherwise she might just manage to devour you.
- There's an odd quirk inside that didn't change with 'success' (after "Dedee d'Anvers") and still hasn't. I think: It worked this time. I put it over on them. I made them believe I could do it. But one of these days they're going to discover the fakery. They're going to find out I'm only an amateur.
- [Marilyn Monroe in 1960] She seemed to have no other happy professional memories. None of those moments of uproarious giggles among pals, none of those practical jokes, none of the noisy hugs and kisses after a scene when everyone knows all have acted well together.
- In Hollywood, in 1964, Vivien Leigh gave elegant dinners in the big house she had rented from London. ...She was no longer Laurence Olivier's wife, but she wanted to remain Lady Olivier...At the end of these evenings the phonograph played the theme from Gone with the Wind (1939).
- Hordes of young girls never copied my hairdoes or the way I talk or the way I dress. I have, therefore, never had to go through the stress of perpetuating an image that's often the equivalent of one particular song that forever freezes a precise moment of one's youth.
- In films as well as life, " said Jack Lang, French minister of culture September 30, 1985, "Miss Signoret was an unshakeable militant, in the front rank of all the battles for human rights, under all regimes and on all horizons. It was faith that sustained her, faith in her ideals of liberty and progress.
- The Sea Gull (1969) - $25,000
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