Paris (AFP)
Simone Signoret and Yves Montand would each have been 100 years old in 2021. The actress and the singer-actor: two sacred monsters and above all a flagship couple, united by the same political commitment despite the vicissitudes of life.
It all started with love at first sight.
In August 1949, under the radiant sun of Saint-Paul-de-Vence, in the shade of the "La Colombe d'or" bar, the headquarters of their mutual friend, Jacques Prévert.
She has a deep and sensual voice, is sparkling and cultivated.
Simone Kaminker, born March 25, 1921, who took her mother's maiden name to play, is on vacation with her daughter Catherine.
Her husband Yves Allégret is in Paris.
They spin the perfect love and she's been a star ever since he filmed her in his first big role, "Dédée d'Anvers".
He, a handsome, somewhat brave kid, a few months younger than his junior, gives concerts not far away.
Ivo Livi, the son of Italian immigrants, raised in Marseille and who worked from the age of 11, has carved out a great place for himself in the music hall.
His name is now Yves Montand.
Wink at his mother who hailed him "Ivo, go upstairs!"
Edith Piaf put his foot in the stirrup and put him in his bed.
Before leaving him, without a word.
The womanizer, bruised, has sworn not to fall in love again.
Prévert presents them.
Between the small bourgeoisie of Neuilly and the Marseillais Titi, "something dazzling, indiscreet and irreversible" is happening, she said.
- The "trailer" and the groupie -
She lets go of everything for him.
Before marrying, they move to Place Dauphine, in Paris.
Their cocoon, renamed "La Roulotte", welcomes the many friends of the left to party and remake the world, as then their manor house in Autheuil (Eure).
The couple share the same sensitivity.
Simone inherited from her mother "a sort of quixotic pacifism".
She made her first foray into the proletariat in contact with the Montand family, who "felt, little child, what oppression, struggle, humiliation" was.
We will see them in a multitude of fights: against nuclear weapons, McCarthyism, for the independence of Algeria, the Chilean refugees, SOS Racism ... but also against the horrors of the Soviet bloc: they turn together "L 'Aveu' (1970), one of their five joint films.
They have never been members of the PCF, rather companions on the road.
Until the tear, in 1956, during the tour of Montand in the USSR and in the countries of the East.
We are just after the Soviet intervention in Hungary.
Dilemma of the couple.
Finally, they go there.
The tour is triumphant but full of sadness.
In the Moscow metro, Simone reads in some looks "on your way, you betrayed us".
"I continue to hope, I no longer believe", adds Montand.
The actor of "Z", "César et Rosalie" and "Jean de Florette" will even turn liberal in the 80s, to the chagrin of Simone.
As in Moscow, she attends each of her concerts in France, sometimes to the detriment of her shootings.
The priority is him.
What she sums up as a little feminist: "A married life is built on solid foundations and it is a law of nature: the man dominates, the woman submits".
"I've never been anything other than her groupie. And I'm very proud of it," she said again.
This did not prevent him from having a successful career, from "Golden Helmet" to "La Vie devant soi" via "L'Armée des ombres" or "Le Chat" ... With one of the prettiest film charts.
Including the Oscar in April 1960 for "Les Chemins de la haute ville".
- The "Marilyn" test -
1960, year of international recognition but also of humiliation.
She leaves Hollywood to shoot in Rome, Montand stays for "The Billionaire".
His partner Marilyn Monroe falls for this crooner made in France.
This is the major breach of the contract.
Beside all the others ... She tries to make against bad luck good heart - "You know many men who would remain insensitive while having Marilyn Monroe in their arms?" - but will never forget.
In "sacred monster, there is monster", says their grandson Benjamin Castaldi.
"They were out of the ordinary, they could be monsters of selfishness and sometimes wickedness."
In 2004, Catherine Allégret will accuse Montand of having abused her.
Thunderstorms are frequent in the couple.
She drinks - a lot -, smokes Gauloise sur Gauloise, ages prematurely and takes refuge in writing.
A life in parallel in short, but the bond remains.
She died in 1985 of cancer;
he survives her six years, remakes his life and becomes a father for the first time.
But the two lovers are reunited forever at Père Lachaise.
"They argued all the time but, oddly enough, were never angry," their friend Georges Cravenne was surprised.
"It's very simple", said Montand, "we lived 10 years of an extraordinary passion and then, we had the wisdom not to want to continue artificially".
"We love each other and we love each other," she summed up nicely.
© 2021 AFP