July 5, 1889– Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau
I am a hyphenate: ne’er-do-well-bon-vivant-hedonist-reluctant-star-cultural icon-star fucker. My husband is a hyphenate; most people in Portland are, as an artist-designer-business own, he is a bit of an underachiever, but not when compared with poet-artist-playwright-actor-designer-photographer-filmmaker-boxing manager Jean Cocteau. Cocteau published his first volume of poems when he was just 19 years old. He was a celebrated artist & popular man-about-town in Paris, with the success of several ballets & plays that he wrote while still in his 20s.
In the early 1920s, Cocteau’s lover, writer Raymond Radiguet, died of typhoid fever & a despondent Cocteau escaped the pain of his loss with a little help from opium. In 1930, Cocteau tried filmmaking as the medium best suited for his very individual artistic expression. Cocteau’s stylized, homoerotic films are taken from his own drawings: bold, simple strokes, accentuated eyes, minimalist outlines & profiles, along with the erotic, surrealistic portraits that dominate the sets of his films. In his later works, Cocteau included bits of his poetry written in his distinctive handwriting, samples of his drawings & paintings, voice-over narration, & even casts himself in some of the roles.
Cocteau’s work is marked by whimsical special effects, exotic landscapes & themes of narcissism, the Orpheus myth, mirrors, passage ways to secret worlds, fairy tales, flowers, & beautiful people in iconic settings.
In 1937, Cocteau met Jean Marais, the most famous of his many lovers, & he helped make this talented, handsome, & athletic young man into one of France’s most beloved movie stars. Cocteau & Marais made such classics films as La Belle et la Bête & Orphée together & changed filmmaking forever.
Cocteau believed that artists should speak out against unjust political domination although he was burdened by the barely hidden secrets of his opium use & homosexuality which made him particularly vulnerable to attack by France’s right-wing government. During the Nazi Occupation, his plays were banned & Cocteau became a victim of intimidation, physical violence & homophobic insults. But still, Cocteau continued to write, make films, travel, & attract famous friends, patrons, & protégés throughout the rest of his life. Cocteau even managed to be elected to the prestigious Académie Français.
Cocteau was friends with the most important figures of the Parisian avant-garde, including writer Guillaume Apollinaire & artists Amedeo Modigliani & Pablo Picasso. He was so taken with gay dancer Vaslav Nijinsky of the Ballets Russes that he asked the company’s gay founder Sergei Diaghilev to collaborate. Cocteau designed posters for the Ballets Russe, & in 1917 he help produce the theatrical spectacle Parade, writing the libretto, with Erik Satie composing the music, & Picasso designing the set & costumes.
Cocteau died of a heart attack in 1963, just an hour after learning of his muse Édith Piaf‘s death. A classic overachiever, during his long life Cocteau wrote more than 30 volumes of poetry, 7 novels, 24 plays, 11 ballets, 6 operas, 6 full length films, & produced 1000s of drawings & photographs. He contributed to the worlds of publishing, graphic design, clothing design, & interior design. He managed a professional boxer, who became the sport’s first Hispanic world champion. He had affairs with Edouard Dermit, whom he legally adopted, the boxer Panama Brown, whom he managed, & teenage writing prodigy Raymond Radiguet, plus a few women. Where did he find the energy & time? I am spent by writing a #BornThisDay column & walking my terriers.
Jean Cocteau remains one of France’s most famous, & most adored cultural icons, & one of the most fascinating gay men of the 20th century. How about his life story as a film starring Adrian Brody directed by Wes Anderson?
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