Jean Cocteau was a poet, painter, playwright, screenwriter, film director, set designer, and actor—a multifaceted creator who left an indelible mark on the art of the twentieth century. He was born on July 5, 1889, just outside Paris, into an upper-middle-class family; his father was the local notary. When Jean was nine years old, his father committed suicide, and Jean moved with his mother and siblings into his grandparents' house.
Years later, Cocteau, who lived openly as a homosexual, would say of his father:
*"A homosexual recognizes another homosexual just as a Jew recognizes another Jew. He sees through the mask. I always believed that my father resembled me so much that it was impossible for him to differ from me on this essential point. Evidently, the pressure of suppressing his inclinations proved unbearable. In his time, after all, they killed you for far less."*
The young Jean attended some of the most expensive schools in France. However, in 1906 he travelled to Marseille and lived in the notorious districts around the harbor. "This was my real school. Here I found my freedom," he later confessed.
In 1909, at the age of eighteen, he published his first collection of poetry, *Aladdin's Lamp*. In 1911 he founded the literary magazine *Shéhérazade*, in which he regularly published his poems. During this period he became associated with the director of the Ballets Russes, who staged his work *The Blue God*. In 1914, with the outbreak of the First World War, he enlisted as a volunteer ambulance driver.
In 1917 he presented the ballet *Parade*, which caused a major scandal in Paris. It was Guillaume Apollinaire who coined the term "surrealism" to describe the work.
In 1924, his longtime companion died of typhoid fever. Cocteau fell into a period of depression and became addicted to opium. Nevertheless, he continued to write tirelessly—poetry, plays, and operas. In 1927 his opera *Orpheus* was staged, and in 1929 he wrote *Les Enfants Terribles* (*The Holy Terrors*), which received enthusiastic critical acclaim.
From this period onward, he also devoted himself to cinema, writing, directing, producing, and acting in films. In 1937 he met the actor Jean Marais, who would become his lifelong companion. In 1946 he wrote and directed one of his most celebrated films, *Beauty and the Beast*. In 1948 he travelled to the United States, where he achieved great success with *The Terrible Parents*. In 1950 his film *Orpheus* won the Grand Prize at the Venice Film Festival.
In 1952 he travelled to Greece, whose ancient civilization and mythology had long served as a major source of inspiration for his work.
On October 11, 1963, the singer Edith Piaf died, and a group of journalists interviewed Cocteau about the event. Only a few hours later, he himself died of a heart attack. He had suffered in recent years from coronary disease, while in the days preceding his death he had undergone an unsuccessful facelift operation that had left him severely disfigured.
