Yves Montand

Montand was born Ivo Livi in Stignano, a small village in the hills of Monsummano Terme, Italy, to Giovanni Livi, a broom manufacturer.{{cite book |last1=Montand |first1=Yves |title=You see, I haven't forgotten |last2=Hamon |first2=Hervé |last3=Rotman |first3=Patrick |last4=Leggatt |first4=Jeremy |publisher=Knopf |year=1992 |isbn=0679410120 |pages=}}{{cite journal |author=Rosen, Marjorie |date=1991-11-25 |title=Adieu, Yves |url=http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20111346,00.html |url-status=dead |journal=People |volume=36 |issue=20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090205111442/http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20111346,00.html |archive-date=2009-02-05 |access-date=2023-07-30}} Montand's mother Giuseppina Simoni was a devout Catholic. The family left Italy for France in 1923 following fascist Benito Mussolini's rise to power.{{cite news |last=Hodgson |first=Moira |date=5 September 1982 |title=Yves Montand – From the Music Hall to the Met |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1982/09/05/arts/yves-montand-from-the-music-hall-to-the-met.html?&pagewanted=all |access-date=2023-07-30}} He grew up in Marseille, where, as a young man, he worked in his sister's beauty salon (Salon de Coiffure), as well as later on the docks. He began a career in show business as a music-hall singer. In 1944, he was discovered by Édith Piaf in Paris; she made him part of her act.{{cite web |title=Piaf - Montand Romance and Partnership |date=8 November 2021 |url=https://france-amerique.com/yves-montand-an-american-dream/}}

{{more citations needed section|date=November 2015}}

Montand achieved international recognition as a singer and actor, starring in many films. He is recognised for crooner style songs, with those about Paris becoming instant classics. He was one of the best known performers at Bruno Coquatrix's Paris Olympia music hall, and toured with musicians including Didi Duprat. In October 1947, he sang "Mais qu'est-ce que j'ai ?" (music by Henri Betti and lyrics by Édith Piaf) at the Théâtre de l'Étoile. Betti also asked him to sing "C'est si bon" but Montand refused. Following the success of the recording of this song by the Sœurs Étienne in 1948, he decided to record it. Montand was also very popular in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, where he did a concert tour in 1956-57.{{Cite book |last1=Oiva |first1=Mila |url=https://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-030-69048-9 |title=Yves Montand in the USSR: Cultural Diplomacy and Mixed Messages |last2=Salmi |first2=Hannu |last3=Johnson |first3=Bruce |date=2021-04-29 |publisher=Springer International Publishing |isbn=978-3-030-69047-2 |location=Cham |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-69048-9 |s2cid=242402774}}

During his career, Montand acted in American motion pictures as well as on Broadway. He was nominated for a César Award for Best Actor in 1980 for I comme Icare and again in 1984 for Garçon! In 1986, after his international box-office draw power had fallen off considerably, the 65-year-old Montand gave one of his best remembered performances, as the scheming uncle in Jean de Florette, co-starring Gérard Depardieu, and Manon des Sources (both 1986), co-starring Emmanuelle Béart. The film was a worldwide critical hit and revived Montand's profile in the United States, where he made an appearance on Late Night with David Letterman.{{cite web |date=1987-06-17 |title=Late Night with David Letterman (a Guest Stars & Air Dates Guide) |url=http://epguides.com/LateNightwithDavidLetterman/ |access-date=14 May 2013}}

File:Yves Montand Cannes.jpg]]

In 1951, he married Simone Signoret, and they co-starred in several films throughout their careers. The marriage was, by all accounts, fairly harmonious, lasting until her death in 1985, although Montand had a number of well-publicised affairs, notably with American actress Marilyn Monroe, with whom he starred in one of her final films, Let's Make Love. He was the stepfather to Signoret's daughter from her previous marriage, Catherine Allégret.

Montand's only child, a son named Valentine by his second wife, Carole Amiel (b. 1960), was born in 1988. In a paternity suit that caused commotion across France, another woman accused Montand of being the father of her daughter and went to court to obtain a DNA sample from him. Montand refused, but the woman persisted even after his death. In a court ruling that made international headlines, the woman won the right to have Montand exhumed and a sample taken.{{cite web |date=12 March 1998 |title=Body of Entertainer Montand Exhumed |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-mar-12-mn-28204-story.html |access-date=20 August 2012 |work=Los Angeles Times}} The results indicated that he was not the girl's biological father.{{cite book |author=Fuchs |first=Rachel G. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z1VqqZE79PoC&pg=PT272 |title=Contested Paternity: Constructing Families in Modern France |date=2008-07-25 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |isbn=978-0801898167 |page=272 |language=en}}

He supported left-wing causes during the 1950s and 1960s, and attended Communist festivals and meetings.{{cite web |last=Meisler |first=Stanley |date=1985-10-01 |title=French Actress Simone Signoret Dies at 64 |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-10-01-mn-19173-story.html |url-access=subscription |access-date=2021-11-17 |website=Los Angeles Times}}

Signoret and Montand had a home in Autheuil-Authouillet, Normandy, where the main village street is named after him.

In his later years, he maintained a home in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Provence, until his death from a heart attack in November 1991.{{Cite web |title=Yves Montand - Biography |url=https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0598971/bio/ |access-date=2023-07-30 |website=IMDb |language=en-US}} In an interview, Jean-Jacques Beineix said, "[H]e died on the set [of IP5: The Island of Pachyderms]... On the very last day, after his very last shot. It was the very last night and we were doing retakes. He finished what he was doing and then he just died. And the film tells the story of an old man who dies from a heart attack, which is the same thing that happened!"{{Cite web |date=2009-06-05 |title=The Return of Jean-Jacques Beineix, Pt. II |url=http://www.videobusiness.com/blog/1740000174/post/370045237.html |access-date=2009-06-17 |website=www.videobusiness.com}} Montand is interred next to his first wife, Simone Signoret, in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

In 2004, Catherine Allégret, Signoret's daughter from her first marriage to director Yves Allégret, alleged in her autobiography Un monde a l'envers (A World Upside Down) that she had been sexually abused by her stepfather from the age of five; his behaviour apparently continuing for many years,{{cite news |last=Bremnerin |first=Charles |date=30 September 2004 |title=Actress says cinema idol stepfather abused her |work=Irish Independent |agency=The Times (London) |url=http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/actress-says-cinema-idol-stepfather-abused-her-25900219.html |access-date=20 November 2013}} and that he had a "more than equivocal attitude to her" as she got older.{{Cite news |date=2004-10-01 |title=Catherine Allégret détaille ses relations avec Montand |language=fr |work=L'Obs |url=https://o.nouvelobs.com/people/20040929.OBS8018/catherine-allegret-detaille-ses-relations-avec-montand.html |access-date=2023-07-30}} However, she also claimed to have been reconciled to him in the latter years of his life.{{Cite web |last=Mathieu |first=Hélène |date=2009-02-06 |title=Catherine Allégret : " Cette vérité, c'est à moi de la dire " |url=https://www.psychologies.com/Moi/Epreuves/Deuil/Articles-et-Dossiers/Catherine-Allegret-Cette-verite-c-est-a-moi-de-la-dire |access-date=2023-07-30 |website=Psychologies.com |language=fr-FR}}

File:Yves Montand 1966.jpg driver Jean-Pierre Sarti in Grand Prix, 1966]]

{{div col|colwidth=30em}}

• 1951: ''Yves Montand Sings (Decca)
• 1952: Chante (Odéon)
• 1953: Chante ses dernières créations (Odéon)
• 1953: Chante Paris (Odéon)
• 1953: Récital au Théâtre de l'Étoile 1953 (Odéon, live)
• 1954: Chante ses derniers succès (Odéon)
• 1954: # 54 (Odéon)
• 1955: Chansons populaires de France (Odéon)
• 1957: 13 ans déjà ! (Odéon)
• 1958: Dix chansons pour l'été (Odéon)
• 1958: Succès du Récital 1958 au Théâtre de L'Étoile (Odéon)
• 1958: Récital 1 + Récital 2 (Philips)
• 1958: Étoile 58 (Philips)
• 1959: One Man Show (Columbia, North America, Philips in UK)
• 1960: Dansez avec Yves Montand (Philips)
• 1961: Rengaine ta rengaine (Philips)
• 1962: Chante Prévert (Philips)
• 1962: Récital 63 – Intégral du Théâtre de l'Étoile (Philips, live)
• 1967: 7 (Philips)
• 1968: La Bicyclette (Philips)
• 1968: Le Paris de... (Philips)
• 1968: À l'Olympia (Philips, live)
• 1970: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (Columbia, soundtrack with Barbra Streisand)
• 1972: Dans son dernier "One man show" intégral (CBS, live)
• 1974: Montand de mon temps (CBS)
• 1981: D'hier et d'aujourd'hui (Philips)
• 1981: Le disque de la paix (Philips)
• 1982: Olympia 81 (Philips)
• 1983: In English (Philips)
• 1984: Chante David Mc Neil (Philips)
• 1988: Trois places pour le 26 (Philips, w/ Mathilda May, soundtrack)
• 1993: Les années Odéon – 1945–1958 (Columbia, 9-CD boxset)
• 1997: Plaisirs inédits (Universal)
• 2000: Et la fête continue – Intégrale 1945–1949 – Vol. 1 (Frémeaux)
• 2001: Inédits, rares & indispensables (Mercury, 4-CD boxset)
• 2004: Sensationnel – Intégrale 1949–1953 – Vol. 2 (Frémeaux)
• 2007: Une étoile à l'Étoile – Intégrale 1953–1954 – Vol. 3 (Frémeaux, live)

{{div col end}}

• {{Portal inline|France}}
• {{Portal inline|Music}}
• {{Portal inline|Biography}}

{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

{{Commons category|Yves Montand}}

• {{usurped|1=[https://archive.today/20121208211258/http://www.fundacionjoseguillermocarrillo.com/sitio/muspopular_yves_montand.php International Jose Guillermo Carrillo Foundation]}}
• {{iMDb name|598971}}
• {{IBDB name}}
• {{Discogs artist|Yves Montand}}

{{Yves Montand}}

{{David di Donatello for Best Foreign Actor}}

{{Lincoln Center Gala Tribute}}

{{Cannes Film Festival jury presidents}}

{{César Awards presidents}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Montand, Yves}}

Category:1921 births

Category:1991 deaths

Category:Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery

Category:Former Marxists

Category:French male film actors

Category:Italian male film actors

Category:Italian emigrants to France

Category:Male actors from Marseille

Category:People from Monsummano Terme

Category:David di Donatello winners

Category:Musicians from Marseille

Category:20th-century French male actors

Category:20th-century French male singers

Category:French-language singers of Italy