Yves Montand was Edith Piaf’s protégé. She discovered him in 1944 while he was still a struggling artist in Marseilles. Yves Montand is actually Ivo Livi, and born in Italy. His parents fled Mussolini’s Italy in 1923 and settled in France. So already in his early twenties he became part of the great Piaf’s entourage.
Montand started a career as a film star as early as 1946. When he married film start Simone Signoret in 1951 they starred together in many movies. Like many movie-stars of his time, Montand was subject of many scandals. The best known among them is his fling with Marilyn Monroe. Somehow none of these well publicised scandals destroyed his marriage. The couple stayed together until her death in 1985. Montand himself died six years later. They are interred together in Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.