Jean Marais

Early life

A native of Cherbourg, France, Marais was a son of Alfred Emmanuel Victor Paul Villain-Marais, a veterinarian, and his wife, the former Aline Marie Louise Vassord. Having recently lost a two-year-old daughter Madeleine, Aline was very disappointed when she gave birth to a boy. She came to accept him but until Jean was six or seven years old his mother raised him as if he were a girl, dressing him like one and giving him dolls to play with. Sometimes Aline was mysteriously absent from home. When he was eighteen, Marais became aware that his mother was a kleptomaniac and that she had been imprisoned for several months or even years in her lifetime.

Career

Early films

Marais' first role was an uncredited bit in On the Streets (1933) and he was in Etienne (1933). Filmmaker Marcel L'Herbier put him in The Sparrowhawk (1933) with Charles Boyer; The Scandal (1934), with Gaby Morlay; Happiness (1934) again with Boyer, The Venturer (1934) with Victor Francen; The New Men (1934) with Harry Baur; and Nights of Fire (1937) with Morlay and Francen.

Marcel Carné gave Marais a small role in Bizarre, Bizarre (1937) and the actor was in Abused Confidence (1937) by Henri Decoin; The Patriot (1938), a biopic of Paul I of Russia with Baur, directed by Maurice Tourneur; and Remontons les Champs-Élysées (1938) directed by Sacha Guitry.

Jean Cocteau

These were small roles. Marais also appeared on stage. He was in a 1937 stage production of Oedipe directed by Charles Dullin, where he was seen by Jean Cocteau. Marais impressed Cocteau, who cast the actor in his play Les Chevaliers de la table ronde.

Marais appeared in Cocteau's play Les Parents terribles (1938), supposedly based on Marais' home life, which was a great success.

Marais had bigger film parts in The Pavilion Burns (1941) directed by Jacques de Baroncelli, and The Four Poster (1942) directed by Roland Tual.

On stage he appeared in La Machine à ecrire (1941) by Cocteau and he directed and designed Racine's Britannicus (1941). He performed briefly with the Comédie-Française. In 1941, after Alain Laubreaux, theater critic for the collaborationist newspaper Je suis partout, wrote an insulting review of La Machine à écrire which alluded to Cocteau's sexuality and drug usage, Marais personally beat up Laubreaux. Cocteau had to personally intervene to prevent reprisals against Marais.

Following the liberation of Paris, Marais left acting for a time for fight in Alsace with the Free French Forces, winning the Croix de Guerre.

Stardom

Marais' first film as leading man was The Eternal Return (1943), a re-telling of Tristan and Isolde set in 1940s France, written by Jean Cocteau. It was directed by Jean Delannoy and co-starred Madeleine Sologne. It was popular and made him a star.

Marais was the male lead in Voyage Without Hope (1943) with Simone Renant directed by Christian-Jaque.

Christian-Jaque also directed Marais in Carmen (1944) with Viviane Romance. This was one of the most popular films in France when it was released.

''Beauty and the Beast'' and Jean Cocteau

Marais became a star in Beauty and the Beast (1946), written and directed by Cocteau.

He performed in a popular revival of Cocteau's 1938 play Les Parents terribles on stage.

Marais' next films were The Royalists (1947), a historical adventure film directed by Henri Calef from a novel by Balzac; and Ruy Blas (1948) with Danielle Darrieux, from a play by Victor Hugo and script by Cocteau, directed by Pierre Billon.

Marais' second film with Cocteau as director was The Eagle with Two Heads (1948) with Edwige Feuillère. He did To the Eyes of Memory (1948) with Michèle Morgan for director Jean Delannoy, a big commercial success, then Les Parents Terribles (1949) for Cocteau again.

Marais was reunited with Delannoy for The Secret of Mayerling (1949), about the Mayerling incident. He did Orpheus (1950) with Cocteau, which was soon regarded as a classic.

Post-Cocteau stardom

Marais and Morgan were in The Glass Castle (1950) directed by René Clément. Marais did two films for Yves Allégret: Miracles Only Happen Once (1951) with Alida Valli and Leathernose (1952).

Marais was in L'appel du destin (1953) for Georges Lacombe; The Lovers of Midnight (1953) for Roger Richebé; Voice of Silence (1953), an Italian film from G. W. Pabst; Inside a Girls' Dormitory (1953); Julietta (1953) for Marc Allégret with Dany Robin and Jeanne Moreau; the all-star Boum sur Paris (1953); and The Faith Healer (1954).

Marais starred in a version of The Count of Monte Cristo (1954) that was hugely popular. He then made some all-star Guitry films, Royal Affairs in Versailles (1954), Napoleon (1955) (playing Charles Tristan, marquis de Montholon) and If Paris Were Told to Us (1956); School for Love (1955) for Allegret, with a young Brigitte Bardot, a box office flop; Kiss of Fire (1956) for Robert Darène; and The Whole Town Accuses (1956).

Marais was Ingrid Berman's co-star in Elena and Her Men (1956) directed Jean Renoir, with also Mel Ferrer. He followed it with Typhoon Over Nagasaki (1957) with Darrieux; S.O.S. Noronha (1957); White Nights (1957) for Luchino Visconti, with Maria Schell and Marcello Mastroianni; Girl in His Pocket (1958); King on Horseback (1958); Every Day Has Its Secret (1958); and the all-star Life Together (1958).

Swashbuckler star

Marais starred in the swashbuckler Le Bossu (1959), appearing alongside Bourvil and directed by André Hunebelle which was a mammoth hit launched a new stage of his career. He was reunited with Cocteau for Testament of Orpheus (1960). He played Lazare Carnot in the all-star The Battle of Austerlitz (1960), then was reunited with Bourvil and Hunebelle in another swashbuckler, Captain Blood (1960).

He did Princess of Cleves (1961) for Delannoy with Marina Vlady based on a script by Cocteau. It was back to swashbuckling with Captain Fracasse (1961) for director Pierre Gaspard-Huit, and Blood on His Sword (1961) for Hunebelle.

Marais had a supporting role in Napoléon II, l'aiglon (1962) then did some films in Italy: Romulus and the Sabines (1962) with Roger Moore, and Pontius Pilate (1962), where Marais played the title role alongside Jeanne Crain and Basil Rathbone.

He was reunited with Hunebelle for The Mysteries of Paris (1962), then did The Iron Mask (1962) for Decoin.

Spy films and ''Fantomas''

The success of the James Bond films saw Marais cast in an espionage movie, The Reluctant Spy (1963) for director Jean-Charles Dudrumet. He did a comedy, Friend of the Family (1964), then had a huge box office success with Fantomas (1964), playing the villain and hero, under the direction of Hunebelle.

In 1963, he was a member of the jury at the 3rd Moscow International Film Festival.

Marais did Ivory Coast Adventure (1965) directed by Christian-Jaque; Killer Spy (1965), directed by Georges Lampin; a sequel to The Reluctant Spy; and Operation Double Cross (1965), a spy film; then a Fantomas sequel, Fantomas Unleashed (1965).

He played Simon Templar in The Saint Lies in Wait (1966) for Christian-Jaque, and a French general in Seven Guys and a Gal (1967), directed by Bernard Borderie. Fantomas vs. Scotland Yard (1967) was the third and final Fantomas, with Hunebelle.

Marais went on to appear in Le Paria (1969); Renaud et Armide (1969), based on a play by Cocteau; and Le jouet criminel (1969), a short.

1970s

After 1970, Marais preferred concentrating on his stage work, and his movie performances became fewer.

His film credits included La provocation (1970); Donkey Skin (1970) with Catherine Deneuve, directed by Jacques Demy; and Robert Macaire (1971) for French TV.

He was in the miniseries Karatekas and co (1973) and Joseph Balsamo (1973), and did the TV movies Vaincre à Olympie (1977) and Les Parents terribles (1980), based on the play by Cocteau.

He directed stage productions of Le bel indifférent (1975) and Les Parents terribles. He took the latter to London in 1978.

Later career

His later work included Emmenez-moi au théâtre; Parking (1985) directed by Demy; Lien de parenté (1986); Les enfants du naufrageur (1992); Dis Papa, raconte-moi là-bas (1993); Les Misérables (1995 film), directed by Claude Lelouch; and Stealing Beauty (1996), directed by Bernardo Bertolucci.

He performed on stage until his 80s, also working as a sculptor and painter. His sculpture Le passe muraille (The Walker Through Walls) can be seen in the Montmartre Quarter of Paris.

In 1985, he was the head of the jury at the 35th Berlin International Film Festival. He was featured in the 1995 documentary Screening at the Majestic, which is included on the 2003 DVD release of the restored print of Beauty and the Beast.

Personal life

From 1937 to 1947 Marais was the lover of Jean Cocteau, who considered him his "'muse". They remained lifelong friends after their relationship ended. Following Cocteau's death in 1963, Marais renounced the inheritance in favor of Cocteau's, last partner, Édouard Dermit. Late in life, he described Cocteau essentially as a friend and mentor. In 1992, Marais wrote a memoir of Cocteau, L'Inconcevable Jean Cocteau. He also wrote an autobiography, Histoires de ma vie, published in 1975. Throughout his life Marais made little effort to hide his sexual orientation but did not flaunt it either, and it never hindered his career and popularity in France.

While the majority of Marais' partners were men, he also had several relationships with women, the most significant one with actress Mila Parély. Marais' relationship with Parély began while they co-starred in the film Le Lit à colonnes (1942) and continued during the making of Beauty and the Beast (1946). They later remained lifelong friends and were also business partners: in the 1970s, Parély became the manager of an art gallery and pottery shop where Marais sold his works in Paris. From 1948 until 1959, Marais' companion was the American dancer George Reich.

In 1942, Marais had a brief affair with a woman, Maria Ayala. This resulted in the birth of a son, Serge Ayala. Marais initially disbelieved that he was Serge's biological father; they met years later when Serge was a teenager and Marais eventually recognized his son in 1963. In his autobiography, Marais falsely claimed that Serge was his adopted son, which was later repeated in the media. Serge, who took the legal name Serge Villain-Marais, had a brief career as a singer and actor thanks to his father's support. In 1996, Marais, who felt neglected by his son, bequeathed his possessions to his close friend Nicole Pasquali. After Marais' death, Serge sued Pasquali and her husband and managed to recover part of his inheritance; he committed suicide in 2012 at age 69 following bouts of loneliness and depression.

Death

Marais died from cardiovascular disease in Cannes, Alpes-Maritimes in 1998. He is interred in the Village cemetery at Vallauris, near Antibes.

In popular culture

The character Tragicomix, in the comic book Asterix the Legionary of 1967, has his characteristics based on Jean Marais.

The story of Marais' wartime beating of Alain Laubreaux became an inspiration for a scene in François Truffaut's 1980 film The Last Metro.

In 1983, a still shot of him from Jean Cocteau's 1950 film Orphée was featured on the cover of The Smiths' "This Charming Man."

Filmography

References

References

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