Abstract
Yves Montand’s life is intertwined with the passions and aspirations of Europe in the twentieth century. It extends from the aftermath of World War I to the dawn of the post-Cold War era. Chapter 4 briefly outlines his life prior to his arrival in Moscow in 1955. He was born on 13 October 1921 in the province of Tuscany in Italy, in the small village of Monsummano Alto, and died on 9 November 1991 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in France. Montand’s real surname was Livi, and his first name was Ivo, later gallicised as Yves. By the end of 1923, the Livi family escaped the rising fascism in Italy and moved to southern France, and Yves Montand spent his early life in the suburbs of Marseilles. He became known as a singer from the late 1930s and as an actor after World War II. He became a transnational star whose activities were carefully followed. In 1951 he married Simone Signoret, and Montand/Signoret became one of the most famous intellectual couples in France at the time, known for their sympathies for the left and for the growing peace movement.
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Notes
- 1.
Yves Montand. 1955. Du soleil plein la tête. Souvenirs recueillis par Jean Denys. Paris: Les Éditeurs français réunis.
- 2.
Yves Montand and Jean Denys. 1956. Solntsem polna golova, translated by M. Kocharian. Moskova: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo ‘Iskusstvo’; Yves Montand and Jean Denys. 1956. Solntsem polna golova, translated by Olga Obraztsova and K. Naumov. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo TsK VLKSM ‘Molodaia Gvardija’; Yves Montand. 1956. Moje życie. Warszawa: PIW. The Russian title of the book is a literal translation of the French original. The Polish title means ‘My Life’.
- 3.
Alain Rémond. 1977. Montand. Paris: Éditions Henri Veyrier, 9.
- 4.
Richard Cannavo and Henri Quiqueré. 1981. Le chant d’un homme: Yves Montand. Paris: Éditions Robert Laffont, 9–10; Setni Baro. 2016. Positiver la crise avec Yves Montand. Paris: Baro Editions; Rémond, Montand, 9.
- 5.
Yves Montand, Hervé Hamon and Patrick Rotman. 1992. You See, I Haven’t Forgotten, translated by Jeremy Leggatt. London: Chatto & Windus, 8.
- 6.
Alan Kramer. 2007. Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 130, 367.
- 7.
Gustav Mayer. 1936. Friedrich Engels: A Biography. London: Chapman & Hall, 262.
- 8.
Montand, Hamon and Rotman, You See, I Haven’t Forgotten, 9–11.
- 9.
Montand, Hamon and Rotman, You See, I Haven’t Forgotten, 13–15.
- 10.
Mary Dewhurst Lewis. 2004. ‘The Strangeness of Foreigners: Polling Migration and Nation in Interwar Marseilles’, Race in France: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Politics of Difference, edited by Herrick Chapman and Laura L. Frader. New York: Berghahn Books, 82.
- 11.
Montand, Hamon, and Rotman, You See, I Haven’t Forgotten, 31–38.
- 12.
Cannavo and Quiqueré, Le chant d’un homme: Yves Montand, 15–19.
- 13.
Montand, Du soleil plein la tête, 129.
- 14.
Quoted in Montand, Hamon, and Rotman, You See, I Haven’t Forgotten, 45.
- 15.
Quoted in Montand, Hamon, and Rotman, You See, I Haven’t Forgotten, 46.
- 16.
Giulana Muscio. 1997. Hollywood’s New Deal. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
- 17.
Paul Buhle and Dave Wagner. 2002. Radical Hollywood: The Untold Story Behind America’s Favorite Movies. New York: The New Press, 59. See also Thomas Doherty. 2013. Hollywood and Hitler, 1933–1939. New York: Columbia University Press, 110.
- 18.
Montand, Hamon, and Rotman, You See, I Haven’t Forgotten, 48–50.
- 19.
Montand, Du soleil plein la tête, 83, 146.
- 20.
Montand, Hamon, and Rotman, You See, I Haven’t Forgotten, 51–53.
- 21.
Rémond, Montand, 12.
- 22.
Montand, Hamon, and Rotman, You See, I Haven’t Forgotten, 57–65.
- 23.
Cannavo and Quiqueré, Le chant d’un homme: Yves Montand, 33.
- 24.
Montand, Hamon, and Rotman, You See, I Haven’t Forgotten, 71–72.
- 25.
La prière aux étoiles (1941), Internet Movie Database, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289409/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast, accessed 30 March 2020.
- 26.
Montand, Hamon and Rotman, You See, I Haven’t Forgotten, 82–91.
- 27.
Quoted in Carolyn Burke. 2011. No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf. London: Bloomsbury, 97.
- 28.
Burke, No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf, 97.
- 29.
Montand comments on this already in his 1955 memoirs, see Montand, Du soleil plein la tête, 198–199.
- 30.
Burke, No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf, 98–99.
- 31.
Montand, Du soleil plein la tête, 202. This passage is also quoted in Cannavo and Quiqueré, Le chant d’un homme: Yves Montand, 34–35.
- 32.
Montand, Hamon and Rotman, You See, I Haven’t Forgotten, 112–139.
- 33.
A.K. Krasnikova 2014. “‘Kogda poet dalekii drug…’ Pesni Iva Montana v Sovetskom Sojuze serediny 1950-kh godov (K 90-letiju so dnia rozhdenija Iva Montana).” Observatorija Kul’tury 2:86–97.
- 34.
Yves Montand’s discography at https://www.discogs.com/artist/147141-Yves-Montand?filter_anv=0&subtype=Singles-EPs&type=Releases and https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discographie_d%27Yves_Montand, accessed 30 March 2020.
- 35.
Edward Baron Turk. 1989. Child of Paradise: Marcel Carné and the Golden Age of French Cinema. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 353–354, 440.
- 36.
On Jo Stafford’s interpretation, see Billboard 14 October 1950, 49. On the Finnish cover, see https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuolleet_lehdet, accessed 30 March 2020. On the Russian interpretation, see https://www.discogs.com/release/2853400, accessed 30 March 2020.
- 37.
In fact, Montand often imitated Chevalier in his shows; see, for example, Montand, Hamon and Rotman, You See, I Haven’t Forgotten, 68.
- 38.
The whole film is available on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q7aVqEyQCE, accessed 30 March 2020.
- 39.
On Signoret’s life and career, see Huguette Bouchardeau. 2005. Simone Signoret. Paris: Éditions Flammarion; Patricia A. DeMaio. 2014. Garden of Dreams: The Life of Simone Signoret. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
- 40.
Simone Signoret. 1978. Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used to Be. New York: Harper & Row, 83. Cf. the description by Montand, in Montand, Hamon and Rotman, You See, I Haven’t Forgotten, 112–139.
- 41.
Signoret, Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used to Be, 83.
- 42.
Montand, Hamon and Rotman, You See, I Haven’t Forgotten, 194.
- 43.
Signoret, Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used to Be, 82–83.
- 44.
Signoret, Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used to Be, 91–92.
- 45.
Georges Soria. 1948. La France deviendra-t-elle une colonie américaine. Paris: Éditions du pavillon. The quote is translated into English in Brian A. McKenzie 2005. Remaking France: Americanization, Public Diplomacy, and the Marshall Plan. New York: Berghahn Books, 193. The first pages of the book can be viewed at: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k3385570f/f17.image.
The book was also reviewed in Cahiers du communisme: organe théorique du Parti communiste (Juillet 1948).
- 46.
Signoret, Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used to Be, 91–92.
- 47.
Tony Judt. 2010. Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945. London: Vintage Books, 352.
- 48.
Judt, Postwar, 353.
- 49.
Judt, Postwar, 353.
- 50.
On Alf Lüdtke’s concept, see, for example, Alf Lüdtke. 1993. Eigen-Sinn: Fabrikalltag, Arbeiterefahrung und Politik vom Kaiserreich bis in den Faschismus. Hamburg: Ergebnisse Verlag.
- 51.
On transnational stardom, see Russell Meeuf and Raphael Raphael, eds. 2013. Transnational Stardom: International Celebrity in Film and Popular Culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan; Sabrina Qiong Yu and Guy Austin, eds. 2017. Revisiting Star Studies: Cultures, Themes and Methods. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
- 52.
G. Aleksandrov. 1955. ‘The French Film Week.’ Pravda 17 October 1955: 3.
- 53.
P. Borisov. 1955. ‘Authors of the films that we will see.’ Smena 18 October 1955: 3.
- 54.
B. Mikh. 1955. ‘The French Film Week.’ Iskusstvo kino 11/1955 (November): 113–117.
- 55.
On Julien Livi’s captivity, see Montand, Hamon and Rotman, You See, I Haven’t Forgotten, 62, 82, 99, 125.
- 56.
Antoine Olivesi and Claude Pennetier. 2018. ‘Livi, Julien.’ Le Maitron. Mouvement ouvrier, mouvement social. Dictionnaire biographique, https://maitron.fr/spip.php?article118680, accessed 30 March 2020.
- 57.
Olivesi and Pennetier, ‘Livi, Julien.’
- 58.
On the history of French Socialism and Communism, see Tiersky, Ronald. 1974. French Communism, 1920–1972. New York: Columbia University Press; Christofferson, Michael Scott. 2004. French Intellectuals Against the Left: The Antitotalitarian Moment of the 1970’s. New York: Berghahn Books.
- 59.
Christofferson, French Intellectuals Against the Left, 267.
- 60.
Judt, Tony. 1992. Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals, 1944–1956. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 282–290.
- 61.
Quoted in Montand, Hamon and Rotman, You See, I Haven’t Forgotten, 357.
- 62.
Olivesi and Pennetier, ‘Livi, Julien.’
- 63.
Montand, Du soleil plein la tête, 223.
- 64.
On Louis Aragon, see for example Judt, Postwar, 224, 353.
- 65.
Signoret, Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used to Be, 147.
- 66.
Signoret, Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used to Be, 94.
- 67.
Signoret, Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used to Be, 97–98.
- 68.
Signoret, Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used to Be, 94.
- 69.
Allan Taylor. ‘Story of the Stockholm Petition: Two Views on the “Peace Petition”.’ The New York Times 13 August 1950; Lawrence S. Wittner. 1993. The Struggle Against the Bomb. Vol. 1: One World or None: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement Through 1953. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 183.
- 70.
Montand, Hamon and Rotman, You See, I Haven’t Forgotten, 230.
- 71.
Montand, Hamon and Rotman, You See, I Haven’t Forgotten, 232. See also the list of notable signatories, The Stockholm Appeal, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_Appeal, accessed 30 March 2020.
- 72.
Signoret, Simone. 1978. Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used to Be. New York: Harper & Row, 93.
- 73.
L’Humanité 2 May 1950. Quoted in Montand, Hamon, and Rotman, You See, I Haven’t Forgotten, 232.
- 74.
Montand, Hamon, and Rotman, You See, I Haven’t Forgotten, 232.
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Oiva, M., Salmi, H., Johnson, B. (2021). Biography: Ivo Livi and Yves Montand. In: Yves Montand in the USSR. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69048-9_4
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