Early life Cocteau was born in
Maisons-Laffitte,
Yvelines, to Georges Cocteau and Eugénie Lecomte, a socially prominent Parisian family. His father, a lawyer and amateur painter, died by suicide when Cocteau was nine. From 1900 to 1904, Cocteau attended the
Lycée Condorcet where he met and began a relationship with schoolmate Pierre Dargelos, who reappeared throughout Cocteau's work "John Cocteau: Erotic Drawings". He left home at fifteen. He published his first volume of poems, ''Aladdin's Lamp
, at nineteen. Cocteau soon became known in Bohemian artistic circles as The Frivolous Prince'', the title of a volume he published at twenty-two.
Edith Wharton described him as a man "to whom every great line of poetry was a sunrise, every sunset the foundation of the Heavenly City..."
Early career ,
Jean Cocteau, 1916,
Henry and Rose Pearlman Collection, on long-term loan to the
Princeton University Art Museum , 's
Parade, ballet on a scenario by Cocteau|150px In his early twenties, Cocteau became associated with the writers
Marcel Proust,
André Gide, and
Maurice Barrès. In 1912, he collaborated with
Léon Bakst on
Le Dieu bleu for the
Ballets Russes; the principal dancers being
Tamara Karsavina and
Vaslav Nijinsky. During
World War I, Cocteau served in the
Red Cross as an ambulance driver. This was the period in which he met the poet
Guillaume Apollinaire, artists
Pablo Picasso and
Amedeo Modigliani, and numerous other writers and artists with whom he later collaborated. Russian impresario
Sergei Diaghilev persuaded Cocteau to write a scenario for a ballet, which resulted in
Parade in 1917. It was produced by
Diaghilev, with sets by Picasso, the
libretto by Apollinaire and the music by
Erik Satie. "If it had not been for Apollinaire in uniform," wrote Cocteau, "with his skull shaved, the scar on his temple and the bandage around his head, women would have gouged our eyes out with hairpins." An important exponent of
avant-garde art, Cocteau had great influence on the work of others, including a group of composers known as
Les Six. In the early twenties, he and other members of Les Six frequented a wildly popular bar named
Le Boeuf sur le Toit, a name that Cocteau himself had a hand in picking. The popularity was due in no small measure to the presence of Cocteau and his friends.
Friendship with Raymond Radiguet ,
Portrait de Jean Cocteau, 1921 In 1918, he met the French poet
Raymond Radiguet. They collaborated on literary projects, socialized, and traveled together. Cocteau also assisted in obtaining Radiguet's exemption from military service. Admiring of Radiguet's great literary talent, Cocteau promoted his friend's works in his artistic circle and arranged for the publication by Grasset of
Le Diable au corps, a largely autobiographical story of an adulterous relationship between a married woman and a younger man, exerting his influence to have the novel awarded the "Nouveau Monde" literary prize. Some contemporaries and later commentators thought there might have been a romantic component to their friendship. Cocteau himself was aware of this perception, and worked earnestly to dispel the notion that their relationship was sexual in nature. There is disagreement over Cocteau's reaction to Radiguet's sudden death in 1923, with some claiming that it left him stunned, despondent and prey to
opium addiction. Opponents of that interpretation point out that he did not attend the funeral (he generally did not attend funerals) and immediately left Paris with Diaghilev for a performance of
Les noces (
The Wedding) by the
Ballets Russes at
Monte Carlo. His opium addiction at the time, Cocteau said, was only coincidental, due to a chance meeting with
Louis Laloy, the administrator of the
Monte Carlo Opera. Cocteau's opium use and his efforts to stop profoundly changed his literary style. His most notable book,
Les Enfants Terribles, was written in a week during a strenuous
opium weaning. In
Opium: Diary of a Cure, he recounts the experience of his recovery from opium addiction in 1929. His account, which includes vivid pen-and-ink illustrations, alternates between his moment-to-moment experiences of
drug withdrawal and his current thoughts about people and events in his world. Cocteau was supported throughout his recovery by his friend and correspondent, Catholic philosopher
Jacques Maritain. Under Maritain's influence, Cocteau made a temporary return to the sacraments of the
Catholic Church. With Maritain, he founded the literary magazine
Le Roseau d'Or. He again returned to the Church later in life and undertook a number of religious art projects.
Further works On 15 June 1926 Cocteau's play
Orphée was staged in Paris. It was quickly followed by an exhibition of drawings and "constructions" called
Poésie plastique–objets, dessins. Cocteau wrote the libretto for
Igor Stravinsky's opera-oratorio
Oedipus rex, which had its original performance in the
Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt in Paris on 30 May 1927. In 1929 one of his most celebrated and well-known works, the novel
Les Enfants terribles was published. During this period Cocteau also published two volumes of journalism, including
Mon Premier Voyage: Tour du Monde en 80 jours, a neo-
Jules Verne around the world travel reportage he made for the newspaper
Paris-Soir. According to
Claude Arnaud, from the 1920s on, Cocteau's only deeply held political convictions were a marked
pacifism and
antiracism. He praised the French republic for serving as a haven for the persecuted, and applauded Picasso's anti-war painting
Guernica as a cross that "
Franco would always carry on his shoulder". In 1940, Cocteau signed a petition circulated by the Ligue internationale contre l'antisémitisme (
International League Against Antisemitism) which protested the rise of
racism and
antisemitism in France, and declared himself "ashamed of his white skin" after witnessing the plight of colonized peoples during his travels. In his diary, Cocteau accused France of disrespect towards Hitler and speculated on the Führer's sexuality. Cocteau effusively praised Breker's sculptures in an article entitled published in 1942. This piece caused him to be arraigned on charges of collaboration after the war, though he was cleared of any wrongdoing and had used his contacts for his failed attempt to save friends such as
Max Jacob. Later, after growing closer with communists such as
Louis Aragon, Cocteau would name
Joseph Stalin as "the only great politician of the era". In 1940, , Cocteau's play written for and starring
Édith Piaf (who died the day before Cocteau), was enormously successful.
Later years Cocteau's later years are mostly associated with his films. Cocteau's films, most of which he both wrote and directed, were particularly important in introducing the avant-garde into
French cinema and influenced to a certain degree the upcoming
French New Wave genre.
Private life Jean Cocteau never hid his
homosexuality. He was the author of the mildly homoerotic and semi-autobiographical
Le Livre blanc (translated as
The White Paper or
The White Book), published anonymously in 1928. He never repudiated its authorship and a later edition of the novel features his foreword and drawings. The novel begins: Frequently his work, either literary (
Les enfants terribles), graphic (erotic drawings, book illustration, paintings) or cinematographic (
The Blood of a Poet,
Orpheus,
Beauty and the Beast), is pervaded with homosexual undertones,
homoerotic imagery/symbolism or
camp. In 1947 Paul Morihien published a clandestine edition of
Querelle de Brest by
Jean Genet, featuring 29 very explicit erotic drawings by Cocteau. In recent years several albums of Cocteau's
homoerotica have been available to the general public. In the 1930s, Cocteau is rumoured to have had a platonic affair with Princess
Natalie Paley, the daughter of a
Romanov Grand Duke and herself a sometime actress, model, and former wife of couturier
Lucien Lelong. Cocteau's longest-lasting relationships were with French actors
Jean Marais and , whom Cocteau formally adopted. Cocteau cast Marais in
The Eternal Return (1943),
Beauty and the Beast (1946),
Ruy Blas (1947), and
Orpheus (1949).
Liane de Pougy (1869-1950)'s diaries from 1919 to 1941, published as
Mes cahiers bleus in French in 1977, and
My Blue Notebooks in English in 1979, describe Cocteau.
Death Cocteau died of a heart attack at his
château in
Milly-la-Forêt,
Essonne,
France, on 11 October 1963 at the age of 74. His friend, French singer
Édith Piaf, had died the previous day. Her death was announced on the morning of Cocteau's day of death. It has been said, in a story which is almost certainly
apocryphal, that his heart failed upon hearing of Piaf's death. Cocteau's health had already been in decline for several months, and he had previously had a severe heart attack on 22 April 1963. A more plausible suggestion for the reason behind this decline in health has been proposed by author
Roger Peyrefitte, who notes that Cocteau had been devastated by a breach with his longtime friend, socialite and notable patron
Francine Weisweiller, as a result of an affair she had been having with a minor writer. Weisweiller and Cocteau did not reconcile until shortly before Cocteau's death. According to his wishes, Cocteau is buried beneath the floor of the Chapelle Saint-Blaise des Simples in Milly-la-Forêt. The epitaph on his gravestone set in the floor of the chapel reads: "I stay with you" (). ==Honours and awards==