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Yves Montand
Actor, Singer
(1921 - 1991)
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Yves Montand and his anti-fascist family escaped Mussolini’s Italy when he was a child and became French citizens. As a youth he supported himself with menial jobs while he pursued a career as a music hall singer. In 1944 he was discovered by Edith Piaf who became his mentor and lover for two years. He appeared with her in her nightclub act at the Moulin Rouge and in one of her films, Etoile sans Lumi?re (1945). He introduced “Les Feuilles Mortes,” which became “Autumn Leaves,” in the film Les Portes de la Nuit (1946). In 1951 he gave his first one-man show and married the actress Simone Signoret. He gained international attention as an actor in Henri-Georges Clouzot’s thriller, Le Salaire de la Peur (The Wages of Fear), which won the Cannes prize in 1953. He and Signoret filmed the French adaptation of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible in 1956. The couple came to America where Montand had a one-man show on Broadway and made his first Hollywood film as a leading man in 1960, Let’s Make Love, starring Marilyn Monroe with whom he had a scandalous affair. Montand continued to enjoy stardom on both continents as both a stage and film personality. Beginning with Z in 1968 he made a series of movies with director Costa-Gavras that expressed his leftist politics. He was twice nominated for a Best Actor award and in his later years proved to be a powerful character actor.
- Sandra Burlingame |
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