BMany books have been written and many anecdotes have been reported on Simone Signoret and Yves Montand. The couple they formed, their respective careers, their friendships, their political commitments, the cinema that brought them together, Marilyn Monroe who separated them for a few months, the song, in which Montand shone, the distribution of roles between Simone, leading woman thoughtful, calm, and Montand more instinctive and impulsive.
The legend is beautiful if it is not perfectly correct. But it accounts for a media, volcanic and clan couple. Benjamin Castaldi, son of Catherine Allégret and therefore grandson of Simone Signoret and Yves Allégret, is publishing a book of memories these days (I loved you so much, Editions du Rocher) on his “grandma” as he names her in the book and Yves Montand the latter’s second husband. The text opens with the meeting of the two sacred monsters. We are at the Colombe d’Or, in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, on August 19, 1949. Signoret has his habits there, Montand is coming there for the first time, because this evening he is singing not far from there. We are playing the game of seduction, nothing definitive when suddenly, Ivo Livi lets go of an improbable “you have very fine ties” to his elder sister. And the actress a little surprised to answer: “It is the best compliment that one gave me. “Two sentences which seal a meeting and will open the same afternoon the bed of Simone Kaminker to the interpreter of Dead leaves.
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A mismatched couple who love each other deeply
They will get married in the same place in 1951, the blessed year in which she turned Golden helmet and him The wages of fear. A couple is born: each admires the other. Simone is passionate about the singing tricks of the biggest star of the music hall of the 1950s as he learns his acting profession alongside her. He is readily arrogant and macho, she knows how to have the last word. He gives in to all the enthusiasm of the moment, she thinks twice before accepting a role. He sings the words of others, she spends hours writing books that critics praise: Nostalgia is not what it used to be and 1975 et Adieu Volodia appeared in 1985 a few weeks before his death. This visibly ill-matched couple love each other deeply; each one respects in the other what he does not have in himself.
It is impossible to evoke Signoret and Montand without stopping for a long time at La Colombe d’or in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, at La Roulotte, place Dauphine, and at Autheuil in Eure-et-Loir: the Holy Trinity of places that welcomed the couple and the band of friends who followed and admired them. Jacques Prévert, Jorge Semprun, Bernard Blier, Ivan Levaï, publisher Claude Durand, François Périer, Costa-Gavras, José Artur and a few others formed a family of thought capable of remaking the world, a group of friends who shared the chicken that ‘perfectly accommodated Autheuil’s cook, artists a little more aware than others of the world in which they lived.READ ALSOValentin Livi: Montand’s son evokes this father who he misses so much
Politics separates the two brothers
Montand does not necessarily come out of the book grown. Boastful, self-centered, obsessed with money, addicted to the media, unfaithful but full of charm and finally exemplary when Simone went into agony. On his political positions, Castaldi underlines – and rightly so – his anti-Sovietism once, cleared, he realized the extent of the devastation of the Communists on the other side of the Iron Curtain. A fight against his old convictions and especially against his brother Julien, leader of the CGT, who until the end remained an aficionado of the Marxist ideal. The author does not hide anything from us about the violence of the break between the two men with strong character.
Benjamin Castaldi sprinkles his book with often moving personal anecdotes: his weekends at Autheuil, the snacks with his grandmother, the reading sessions when her eyesight drops, his self-destruction, that day in September 1985 when Jean -Claude Dauphin comes to inform him at school of Simone’s death, his tête-à-tête with Montand at La Roulotte on the evening of his life, after Simone’s death or this “family meal” during which he learns ‘existence of Carole, Montand’s mistress, who will give him a child in 1988. Over the pages, Castaldi also does not fail to say all he owes them and how much Yves Montand and Simone Signoret, as different as they are. they were, helped build the man he has become.
“I loved you so much”, by Benjamin Castaldi, 19.90 euros, editions du Rocher.
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