Simone Signoret (full name Simone-Henrietta-Charlotte Kaminker), French theater and film actress, was born March 25, 1921 in the German city of Wiesbaden. She grew up in Paris, where she received a good education. At the beginning of the fascist occupation, she joined the vagrant troupe of artists, and from that time her life was inextricably linked with art.
First roles
After the end of World War II, Simone Signoret, already married to the director Yves Allegre, played her first significant role in the film "Demons of Dawn" in the production of her husband. Prior to this film, the actress participated in low-budget films. Notable acting achievement of Simone Signoret can be considered her role in the film directed by Max Ofuulsa "Carousel", where she played the main character, the cheerful prostitute Leocadia. The plot focuses on several characters from different walks of life, a married lady and her husband, a servant and her son, a soldier, a sophisticated lady of easy virtue, an inexperienced girl, actress and poet. All these people are caught in the whirlwind of a kind of round dance, each character in turn falls in love with the previous partner, after parting with him, feelings go on to the next, and so on to infinity.
Golden helmet
In 1952, Simone Signoret, photo which already began to appear in European newspapers, played another prostitute (Marie) in the gangster film "Golden Helmet" directed by Jacques Becker. This was the next main role of the actress. Marie, nicknamed for the lush mop of golden hair on her Golden Helmet head, lives quietly in the city of Joinville and meets her friend Roland when gang leader Felix Leka and several of his accomplices arrive in the city. Then, a former gang member, George Manda, appears in the dance club, who has embarked on the path of correction and is no longer involved in criminal activity. Mutual love erupts between him and Marie, quickly turning into a destructive passion that destroys everything around him.
Thrillers
The main role in the film "Devils" directed by Henri-Georges Clouseau, filmed in 1955, consolidated the reputation of the actress working in the thriller genre for Simone Signoret. She played the cruel and prudent lover of the school principal Michel Delasal, husband of Christina Delasal, the legal owner of the school. Nicole - that was the name of the director’s concubine - entered into a conspiracy with him and developed a monstrous plan according to which he was supposed to die allegedly at the hands of his wife. The deceased man then resurrected in front of the shocked Christina, and she immediately died from a broken heart. The goal was achieved, the school and other property that Delasal owned was inherited by the treacherous husband. However, the story did not end there.
First Oscar
In 1959, one of the UK film studios shot the film "The Way Up" directed by Jack Clayton, in which Simone Signoret played the main character, a beautiful middle-aged lady named Alice Asgill. For this role, the actress received several prestigious awards, the main of which was the Oscar. This prize was awarded to Simone for Best Actress. The picture tells about several human destinies, which in the course of the plot are intertwined in the most bizarre way, delighting some participants and giving grief to others. Alice at the end of the film dies in a car accident, and her death becomes the logical ending of this complicated story.
The main roles of the actress
The film "Famous Love Stories", directed in 1961 by director Michel Boiron, consists of four short stories telling about the life of the highest nobility of France. Simone Signoret played a major role in the second short story, where her character, the noble Parisian Jenny de Lacourt, decided to commit a crime in order to deter her young lover from marrying another woman. She bribed an elderly pharmacist, and he splashed sulfuric acid in the young man's face. The aging Lacour did not achieve his goals, only aroused the suspicion of Commissioner Massot, who began an investigation of the crime. And when Jenny's guilt became apparent, she tried to escape and died under the wheels of a horse-drawn carriage.
The next film starring Simone Signoret, The Ship of Fools, was directed by Stanley Kramer in 1965. On the ocean liner several hundred people gathered who should get to the German city of Bremerhaven. The character of Simone Signoret is a Spanish countess, ill with drug addiction, she will face imprisonment. The ship's doctor, William Schumann, falls in love with her. A middle-aged doctor understands that this love is the last, he has a sore heart and his days are numbered. Mutual love of two elderly people gives them both the last joy in life. Soon the liner arrives at the port, the countess is arrested by the police, and she will leave William forever. The doctor returns to his cabin, and after a few minutes his heart stops.
Simone Signoret, whose filmography contains about 50 paintings, is one of the brightest stars of French cinema.
Personal life
The personal life of the actress Simone Signoret is not famous for stormy novels on the set. The actress married twice, the director Yves Allegre became her first husband. The couple lived together from 1944 to 1949, on April 16, 1946 they had a daughter, Catherine, who later also became an actress.
In August 1949, the famous actress Simone Signoret and the rising star of the music hall Yves Montand met on the terrace of the Golden Dove restaurant in Nice. A few days later, Simone, returning home, shared with her husband her impressions of her meeting with Montana. It became clear to both that this was the end of their married life. They decided to wait with a divorce, so as not to injure the three-year-old Catherine.
Simone left to Yves Montand later, and in December 1951 they got married. Simone wanted to constantly be with her beloved husband, she even began to refuse roles in the movie. And after some time, Yves Montand and Simone Signoret became friends with their families with the married couple Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe. They spent weekends together, traveled. In the end, an affair began between Marilyn and Montana. This was a difficult test for Simone, but she tried not to show it. Once the actress said during another interview: "Do you know at least one man who could resist Marilyn?"
Yves Montand soon returned, although in fact he did not leave. The couple lived together until the death of the actress in September 1985. Simone Signoret, whose cause of death is cancer, is buried in the Paris cemetery of Pere Lachaise.