YVES MONTAND

MONTAND (Yves) (1921-1991), Autograph letter signed " Yves " to Simone Signoret, New-York, " This 17 Dec 1961 ". 6 pp. numbered 1, 3, 4 small in-4°. Heading " Hotel Algonquin ", envelope enclosed. Love letter written one year after Montand's affair with Marilyn Monroe. "My love, I'm not going to wait for you to write to me to answer you - I'm probably writing to you first - because I love you... Yes, you're forty years old - you don't have the same friends as ten years ago - you're a bit slumped (me too) and So? I love you the way you are - the way I have always loved you - the way you have been able to make me perfectly and fully happy... I don't want to run away - I want to be a bit of a pain in the ass... when you receive this letter I will be in Hollywood... this is my wife, my real wife. I didn't think I would write to you much more because I imagined that we would stay together and well, you see, it's not for this one yet... Good England and Ireland with very nice people but who will only talk about "money" and "faggoty". I hope for your sake that they will be funny - I love you... " Joint letter signed with autograph paragraph, Paris, December 3, 1949. A little more than a year after his affair with Marilyn Monroe, who had almost broken up his marriage, Yves Montand writes this love letter to Simone Signoret and evokes - awkwardly - the bungalow where they had stayed in Hollywood, next to Marilyn's one. The two actors had become lovers during the shooting of George Cukor's film, The Billionaire, while Simone Signoret had gone back to Europe.