Signoret, Simone
Signoret, Simone,
1921–85, French actress, b. Wiesbaden, Germany, as Simone Henriette Charlotte Kaminker. The sultry blonde actress began as a movie extra; she became well known after she starred in Macadam (1946) and Dédee d'Anvers (1948) and was featured in La Ronde (1950). In 1951 she married her second husband, Yves MontandMontand, Yves, 1921–1991, French singer and actor, b. Italy as Ivo Livi. His family settled in Marseille when he was an infant. He quit school at 11, held various manual-labor jobs, and was singing in local music halls by the time he was a teenager.
..... Click the link for more information. , with whom she often performed on stage and screen, e.g., the film The Sleeping Car Murders (1966). Signoret, who worked in French, British, and American productions, played a scheming, murderous mistress in Henri-Georges ClouzotClouzot, Henri-Georges
, 1907–77, French film director, master of the Gallic noir cinema. His career spanned 40 years, but he was plagued by ill health and completed only 11 feature films, beginning with L'Assassin Habite au 21 (
..... Click the link for more information. 's terrifying thriller Diabolique (1955), and the sensuous but rejected married lover of an ambitious younger man in Room at the Top (1959); she won both the American Academy and British BAFTA best actress awards for the latter. She also won BAFTAs for Casque d'Or (1952) and Les Sorcières de Salem (1957, also with Montand). Signoret's later roles were as a character actress. Her other films include Ship of Fools (1965), The Sea Gull (1968), Le Chat (1971, The Cat), La Vie devant soi (1977, Madame Rosa), and her last, L'étoile du Nord (1982). Signoret also wrote two novels (1979, 1985).
Bibliography
See her autobiography, Nostalgia Isn't What It Used to Be (1976, tr. 1979); biography by P. A. DeMaio (2014).