Biography of Yves Montand, singer best known to Western movie fans for having an affair with Marilyn Monroe on the set of Let's Make Love. Montand never quite made it as a film star in Hollywood films - Warners spotted his talent in the 1940s and tried to sign him when he was just an emerging singer; he returned when a superstar and made a series of films for Fox and later musicals such as On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. But he really hit his straps as a leading man for Costa Gravas. This book is probably definitive account of his life - it is particularly fascinating on the politics.
Montand was actually Italian - his family fled to France in the 1920s to escape fascism. His dad became a commie, which you can understand; so did his sons; but his son Julien remained a die hard commie for most of his life, which I'm sorry makes you a moron esp after post WW2 and 1956 and 1968. Montand remained very pro communist until around the 60s and 70s (its weird that this could be the case but this was France) but then became anti-communist, causing a split. His opinions were valued in France - in the early 80s some polls said 30% of the population wanted him to run for president!
The book accounts all this brilliantly; it also has useful descriptions of Montand's singing and acting (which is a little tricky to those such as myself unfamiliar with them - but how else do you do it in a book?)
It's no surprise to see Montand was a lady's man, despite being married to Simone Signoret for around 30 years - he was slim, had all his hair, could sing, dance and act, grew up in Marseilles in poverty so had working class street cred, worked as a wharf labourer so had even more cred, worked for a year in his sister's hairdressing salon so learned a lot about women quickly. Never had much of a war service, but no body's perfect. One can't feel he had some attraction to famous ladies, his paramours including Edith Piaf, Signoret and Monroe.
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