Simone Signoret (pronounced in French) (25 March 1921 - 30 September 1985) was a French cinema actress who is widely hailed as one of France's greatest movie stars. She became the first French person to win an Academy Award in 1959 for her role in Room at the Top. She holds an immortal place in France for her groundbreaking contributions to the cinema. In her lifetime she also received a BAFTA, an Emmy, Golden Globe, Cannes Film Festival recognition and the Silver Bear for Best Actress.

Signoret was born Simone-Henriette-Charlotte Kaminker in Wiesbaden, Germany to André and Georgette (Signoret) Kaminker. She was the oldest child of three, with two younger brothers. Her father, a pioneering interpreter who worked in the League of Nations, was a French-born Jewish army officer of Polish descent, who brought the family to Neuilly-sur-Seine on the fancy outskirts of Paris. Signoret grew up in Paris in an intellectual atmosphere and studied the English language in school, earning a teaching certificate. She tutored English and Latin and worked part-time as a typist for a French collaborationist newspaper, Les nouveaux temps, run by Jean Luchaire.

During the German occupation of France, Signoret formed close bonds with an artistic group of writers and actors who met at a café in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés quarter, Café de Flore. By this time, she had developed an interest in acting and was encouraged by her friends, including her lover, Daniel Gélin, to follow her ambition. In 1942, she began appearing in bit parts and was able to earn enough money to support her mother and two brothers as her father, who was a French patriot, had fled the country in 1940 to join General De Gaulle in England. She took her mother's maiden name for the screen to help hide her Jewish roots.