From the 1980s, the health of actress Simone Signoret gradually deteriorated due to excessive alcohol and tobacco. Her friend Line Renaud will even affirm with our colleagues from Paris Match: “If I was excessive, it was in the work. I also like to stop, take my time while drinking a small aperitif. I celebrate from time to time, but I don’t start drinking alcohol when I wake up, like Simone Signoret who, from 10 a.m., dipped her croissants in pastis from La Colombe d’or”.
Yves Montand’s wife undergoes a first gallbladder operation before slowly losing her sight. While suffering from pancreatic cancer, she underwent surgery one last time in August 1985. A month later, the talented actress died on her property in Auteuil at the age of 64. She will be buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery. Her husband Yves Montand joined her six years later, in November 1991.
Host Benjamin Castaldi is none other than the grandson of the incredible Simone Signoret. On the plateau of Touch not at my post, he had confided with emotion on the latter. “I became aware of her immense career when she died. It was my tragedy for me. When you are in the car to go to the family home where she died, when you discover the awards, the BAFTAS , the interpretation awards, the Golden Bear, the Oscars…”, he had declared.
On the occasion of his 100th birthday, the host sent him a tender tribute on his Instagram account. “Happy birthday…you would have been 100…today…see I haven’t forgotten I love you,” he wrote. In his book, I loved you so much…: Montand and Signoret, a couple in history, Benjamin Castaldi confided in his grandmother as well as his mother’s adoptive father, whom he was close to. The host had mentioned his funeral during which he was “stunned, haggard, out of time”. In his book, we also learned that Yves Montand had never visited the grave of his beloved, saying: “The dead are not absent, he said, they are invisible”.
Planet invites you to discover in photos the burial of the French actress.
