Born Ivo Livi of peasant stock in Italy, Montand was raised in Marseilles, whence his communist father had fled from fascist Italy in 1923. He left school at 11 and took numerous unskilled jobs until entering the music hall. During the second world war, he moved north and embarked on life as a singer in Paris, where he became the protégé and lover of Edith Piaf. For the next 45 years until his death, he combined a major international singing career with that of actor and political activist, initially as a dedicated fellow traveller, never a card-carrying communist. His friends ranged from Pablo Picasso to Jean-Paul Sartre, in whose version of Arthur Miller's The Crucible, Les Sorcières de Salem, he appeared on stage and film with his wife, Simone Signoret. As a movie star, he worked with three generations of film-makers, beginning by taking over from Jean Gabin, starring as a doomed prole in the poetic-realist Marcel Carné's Les Portes de la nuit, and ending up as a visionary madman in the posthumously released IP5 (1992) by the romantic stylist Jean-Jacques Beineix.
In between he appeared in more than 50 movies. These included Clouzot's The Wages of Fear (1953), one of the greatest thrillers of all time; key New Wave films by Resnais (La Guerre est finie, 1966) and Godard (Tout va bien, 1972); a succession of important political films with Costa-Gavras; some good comedies and efficient crime pictures; and in his 6Os Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources (1986), which brought him his greatest international acclaim.
His screen persona was that of the tough Gallic charmer, a combination of Charles Boyer, Maurice Chevalier and Gabin: this was his role in his most famous, if far from best, English-speaking film, Let's Make Love (1960), playing opposite Marilyn Monroe. But in his principal Costa-Gavras thrillers, he played a Greek socialist leader (Z, 1969), a Czech statesman (L'Aveu ,1970), and a kidnapped American diplomat (State of Siege, 1972).
He was France's Frank Sinatra: both were tall, smooth baritones of Italian stock and one-time lovers of Marilyn Monroe. After critical troughs in their screen careers, they made major forward leaps as serious actors in 1953 playing uncompromising roles (in respectively The Wages of Fear and From Here to Eternity) that drew on their experience of life on the wrong side of the tracks. Both were men of the left who moved steadily to the right, ending up as Reagan enthusiasts in the 80s, when Montand was the first popular singer to perform solo at the Metropolitan Opera House and was being spoken of as a possible president of the French Republic.
His name It's said his French name derives from his mother calling out in Italian, "Ivo, monta!" (Ivo, come here!).
Sinatra on Montand "The guy blows my mind with his songs that don't rhyme."
Essential DVDs The Wages of Fear, The Sleeping Car Murders, Grand Prix, La Guerre est finie, Z, L'Aveu, Le Cercle rouge, Jean de Florette.