There are mythical couples, but with Yves Montand and Simone Signoret, their story reached new heights with the involvement of another legend: Marilyn Monroe. The three stars are indeed the protagonists of a romance worthy of a film script. By disappearing thirty-seven years ago exactly on September 30, the French actress has definitely left behind a particularly romantic life.
We are at the end of the 1950s. Simone Signoret shot in England in Upper town paths under the direction of Jack Clayton. Married since 1951 to Yves Montand, she left with him for the United States. If they are very popular in France, lovers frequent the other side of the Atlantic with the biggest names, such as Arthur Miller. The playwright has just married Marilyn Monroe and the friendship between the two star couples begins. Montand and Signoret settle in Los Angeles at the Beverly Hills Hotel and are housed in bungalows adjoining those of Arthur Miller and Marilyn. The latter particularly appreciates her French colleague. At first, it is a question of shooting a film with him since she imposes it on George Cukor and the producers in The Billionaire in 1960.
A fantastic time in terms of cinema for the two French actors since it was in 1960 that Simone Signoret won the Oscar for best actress in Upper town paths. But while the Frenchwoman is at the top, an idyll began between her husband and the American icon, then revealed by the American press. For Yves Montand, this adulterous relationship – rumors of pregnancy have even surfaced – should not end his marriage with Simone Signoret. This is how after the promotion of the film, he joined his wife and stayed permanently in France, in their house in Autheuil-Anthouillet in the Eure more precisely.
Simone Signoret will not remain bitter however, as she proves in an interview years later with a journalist who questions her about the relationship between her husband and Marilyn. In his autobiography Nostalgia is not what it used to be, the actress confides that she simply regretted that Marilyn Monroe, whom she considered her friend, never knew that she had not wanted him. The legend even wants, according to Vanity Fairthat she was amused to have been “the most famous cuckold in the world“.
The blonde actress divorced Arthur Miller in 1961 shortly after her affair with Yves Montand and died the following year. The French couple will remain married until the death of Simone Signoret in 1985.