Simone Signoret

The face of Simone Signoret on the Paris Metro movie posters in March 1982 looked even older than her 61 years. She was still a box office draw, but the film, L'étoile du Nord (1982), would be her last theatrical release. She played the landlady. Signoret had a long film apprenticeship during World War II, mostly as an extra and occasionally getting to speak a single line. She was working without an official permit during the Nazi occupation of France, because her father, who had fled to England, was Jewish. Working almost all the time, she made enough as an extra to support her mother and three younger brothers. Her breakthrough to international stardom came at the age of 38 with the British film Room at the Top (1959). Her Alice Aisgill, an unhappily married woman who hopes she has found true love, radiated real warmth in all of her scenes, not just those in bed. She was the same woman as Dedee, a prostitute who finds true love in Dédée d'Anvers (1948), a film directed by Signoret's