An easy and carefree young lady, a strong iron lady, an amorous and eccentric flirt … Signoret Simone tried on many roles. But the most important and dear for her was the role of her beloved woman and mother.
Childhood and youth
Simone Signoret, whose real name is Simone Kaminker, is a French actress born on March 25, 1921 in occupation Germany.
Eldest daughter of Andre Kaminker, a Polish Jewish translator and French woman. The family had three children. Simone had two younger brothers - Alain and Jean-Pierre.
Living in Brittany during World War II, like all children, Simone attended high school. After graduating from higher education, the girl taught history to schoolchildren for several months, but this occupation quickly bored her, and she decided to go the other way.
Realizing that pedagogy is not at all what she would like to devote her life to, Simone goes to conquer Paris. There she gets a job as a secretary, and in parallel with her main occupation, she debits at the cinema.
Choosing a stage name, she decided to change her father's surname to her mother's surname - Signoret. The latter seemed to her much more euphonic.
Carier start
In 1943, she met her future husband, Iva Alerget. He was a French filmmaker. Simone did not know with whom she fell more in love - with him or with his profession. The stage, cameras, everyone's attention and recognition - all this bribed her from the first dates and attracted her. Three years later, the couple had a daughter, and a year later they got married.
Second marriage
Her real career began with the film Macadam, for which she won the 1947 Suzanne Bianchetti Prize. Allegret did everything for his wife. He gave Simone the first roles and in every possible way contributed to her success.
But their union was not strong. In August 1949, Yves fell in love with the actress Saint-Paul-de-Vence and left the family. Simone did not live long in divorce. The young woman, constantly flashing on the screen, was popular with men.
The second time she married Yves Montand in December 1951, and lived with him happily ever after until the very end.
In 1960, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in High City Roads by Jack Clayton. She became the second French actress to receive this award after Claudette Colbert.
Returning to France after filming several films in the United States, between 1965 and 1968 Signoret played her most powerful roles, sometimes with political overtones.
In 1977, the interpretation of Madame Rosa in La Vie devant soi won the actress the Caesar Award for Best Actress.
After four years, the health of Simone Signoret, who still smokes and drinks a lot, is seriously deteriorating: she is undergoing the first vesicle operation.
Sight gradually leaves her, she becomes almost blind, over time, highlighting only the silhouettes of objects. Her screen appearances are becoming rare, despite the fact that her film career has not yet been finally suspended. The last operation took place in August 1985, but without success.
She died of pancreatic cancer at her home on September 30, 1985, at about 7:30 a.m. at the age of 64. She was buried in the Pere Lachaise cemetery next to her husband Yves Montand, who died a few years later.
