Simone Signoret

German-born actress, winner of the Best Actress Oscar for "Room At the Top" and the Best Foreign Film Award for "Madame Rosa" in 1977. She began her film career in 1942 under Nazi occupation as an extra in "Le Prince Charmant." To avoid deportation, she changed her name to "Signoret," which was her mother’s maiden name. With "Casque d'Or," she became a star and in 1959 and 1960, won both the Cannes Film Festival Award and an Oscar for "Room at the Top."

Signoret was born Simone Kaminker to a Jewish father and Gentile mother in Germany. Her family moved to Paris and she grew up in Neuilly, a suburb. She first appeared onscreen in 1938 in France in minor roles and by 1960 was internationally known, often as a femme fatale or prostitute. With her steamy and unique beauty, projected hard cynicism and earthy sensuality she illumed feature films during WW II to support her family. When World War II broke out in 1939, her father fled to England, while Simone and her mother remained in Brittany taking in refugees. Simone returned to Paris in 1940 and taught Latin and English in a junior high school before finding a secretarial job at a fascist newspaper, Le Petit Parisien, where she stayed eight months.

In early 1941, she became part of the Left Bank world of intellectuals and artists: At this point in her life, she first met Yves Montand, a protégé of Edith Piaf. In 1944, she married director Yves Allegretand they had daughter, Catherine, but were divorced five years later. She married Yves Montand in 1951, and suffered through his affair with Marilyn Monroe but their marriage lasted until her death.

In 1977, she penned her autobiography, "Nostalgia Isn’t What it Used to Be," which became a best seller. Her "Adieu Volodia" was a 566-page novel published in 1985 and it too was a best seller. In 1966, she won an Emmy for her television work.

She died on 30 September 1985 of lung cancer at her home in Auteuil outside of Paris.