Ivo Livi (better known as Yves Montand (13 October 1921 – 9 November 1991), was an Italian-French actor and singer.
Queer Places:
Cimetière du Père Lachaise
Paris, City of Paris, Île-de-France, France
Ivo Livi (better known as Yves Montand (13 October 1921 – 9 November 1991), was an Italian-French actor and singer.
When openly gay actor Jean-Claude Brialy, a cinema star of the 1950s and ‘60s, revealed that Yves Montand had a gay affair with a noted star of French chanson, it sent shock waves throughout France. The singer was Reda Caire. Though flamboyant, Caire was extremely popular in the macho city of Marseille, where he met the young Montand, who was the handsome young son of an immigrant Italian dockworker. Montand became one of the most celebrated French actors and singers. In 1944, he was discovered by Édith Piaf in Paris, and she made him part of her act. Eventually Montand became a huge star with an international fan base.
Montand became Reda Caire's private secretary and was his lover for nine months. Caire taught the uncultivated Montand a great deal about singing, stage presence, wardrobe, and the like. Helene Hazara, a cultural critic, radio hostess and expert on French chanson, reported that in Montand’s memoir, he wrote that Reda Claire had made advances to him, which he refused, but became his secretary. It was a cover-up attempt, and Brialy's recent outing of Montand's gay affair was no surprise to Parisians in the know. “In fact," Helene wrote, "everyone in show business knew that Montand had been Claire's lover. In the '50s, Montand used to make homophobic jokes about Reda, who called him up one day and said, 'If you say nasty things about me, I can also tell stories about you!' "
Helene, who as a journalist has written about Reda Caire, reports that "Once when I was in Marseille, an old queen told me that Reda, who could be quite bitchy, had said of Montand, 'C'est étrange qu'un garçon doté d'un si joli membre puisse sentir si mauvais des pieds' " (It is odd that a boy with such a beautiful membrum should have such smelly feet.) Montand, of course, was well-known for the size of his membrum; his wife, Simone Signoret, used to call Montand "mon etalon" (my stallion).
In an interview with the now-defunct French weekly Gai Pied in the 1980s, Montand admitted as a youth having had sex with boys "like all the boys from the Meditérannée".
In 1951, he married Simone Signoret, and they co-starred in several films throughout their careers. The marriage was, by all accounts, fairly harmonious, lasting until her death in 1985, although Montand had a number of well-publicized affairs, notably with Marilyn Monroe, with whom he starred in one of her last films, Let's Make Love. He was the stepfather to Signoret's daughter from her prior marriage, Catherine Allégret. Montand's only child, Valentin, his son by his second wife, Carole Amiel, was born in 1988. In a paternity suit that rocked France, another woman accused Montand of being the father of her daughter and went to court to obtain a DNA sample from him. Montand refused, but the woman persisted even after his death. In a court ruling that made international headlines, the woman won the right to have Montand exhumed and a sample taken.[6] The results indicated that he was probably not the girl's biological father.[7] He supported left-wing causes during the 1950s and 1960s, and attended Communist festivals and meetings. In later life he supported right-wing causes.[8] Signoret and Montand had a home in Autheuil-Authouillet, Normandy, where the main village street is named after him. In his later years he maintained a home in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Provence, until his death from a heart attack in November 1991.[9] In an interview, Jean-Jacques Beineix said, "He died on the set... On the very last day, after his very last shot. It was the very last night and we were doing retakes. He finished what he was doing and then he just died. And the film tells the story of an old man who dies from a heart attack, which is the same thing that happened!"[10] Montand is interred next to his first wife, Simone Signoret, in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
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