When and where was Jean Cocteau born?
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was born in Maisons-Laffitte, Yvelines on the 5th of July 1889. His father Georges died by suicide when Jean was nine years old.
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was born in Maisons-Laffitte, Yvelines on the 5th of July 1889. His father Georges died by suicide when Jean was nine years old.
Jean Cocteau made his first film The Blood of a Poet which publicly appeared in 1932. His best known films include Beauty and the Beast from 1946 and Orpheus from 1949. His final film Le Testament d'Orphée appeared in 1960 featuring appearances by Yul Brynner and Luis Miguel Dominguín.
In 1918 he met Raymond Radiguet who died suddenly in 1923. Some claimed his opium addiction began after this loss though opponents point out he attended no funeral and left immediately for Monte Carlo. His most notable book Les Enfants Terribles was written in just one week during strenuous opium withdrawal.
During Nazi occupation he participated in round-table meetings at Georges V Hotel including Ernst Jünger and Paul Morand. He effusively praised Arno Breker's sculptures in an article published in 1942 causing charges of collaboration after the war.
His longest-lasting relationships were with French actors Jean Marais and Raymond Radiguet whom he formally adopted. In 1930s rumors suggested platonic affair with Princess Natalie Paley. Cocteau cast Marais in The Eternal Return, Beauty and the Beast, Ruy Blas, and Orpheus.
Jean Cocteau died of heart attack at château in Milly-la-Forêt on the 11th of October 1963 at age seventy-four. According to wishes he is buried beneath floor of Chapelle Saint-Blaise des Simples. Epitaph reads I stay with you.