Born On This Day- July 5th... The Great French Underachiever Jean Cocteau

My husband is a hyphenate (most people in Portland are), as an artist-designer-set designer, but he is a bit of an underachiever, compared with poet-artist-playwright-actor-designer-photographer-filmmaker-boxing manager, Jean Cocteau. Cocteau published his 1st volume of poems when he was 19. He was a well regarded artist & popular man-about-town in Paris, with the success of several ballets & plays that he wrote in his late 20s. In the early 1920s, Cocteau's lover, writer Raymond Radiguet, died of typhoid fever; the despondent Cocteau escaped the pain of his loss with the help of opium. In 1930, Cocteau tried filmmaking as the medium best suited for his artistic expression. His stylized, homoerotic films are taken from Cocteau's drawings: bold, simple strokes, accentuated eyes, minimalist outlines & profiles, & erotic, surrealistic portraits that dominate the sets of his films. In his later films, Cocteau included bits of his poetry written in his distinctive handwriting, samples of his drawings & paintings, narration, & cast himself in certain roles.

Cocteau’s work is marked by whimsical special effects & exotic landscapes & themes of narcissism, the Orpheus myth, mirrors, passages to secret worlds, fairy tales, flowers, & beautiful people in iconographic settings. In 1937, Cocteau met Jean Marais, the most famous of his lovers, & helped make his talented, handsome, & athletic protégé into one of France's most beloved movie stars. Cocteau made with Marais, such classics films as La belle et la bête & Orphée.

Cocteau by Modigliani

Cocteau encouraged artists to speak out against unjust political domination, & yet he was burdened by the open secrets of his opium use & homosexuality, which made him particularly vulnerable to attack by the right-wing government. During the Nazi Occupation, Cocteau's plays were banned & Cocteau was a victim of physical violence & homophobic insults. But still, Cocteau wrote, made films, traveled, & attracted famous friends, patrons, & protégés throughout the rest of his life. Cocteau was elected to the prestigious Académie Français. The artist died of a heart attack in 1963, just an hour after learning of singer Édith Piaf's death. He wrote more than 30 volumes of poetry, 7 novels, 24 plays, 11 ballets, 6 operas, 6 full length films, & 100s of drawings & photographs. He contributed to the worlds of publishing, graphic design, clothing design, & interior design. Jean Cocteau continues to this day as one of France's most famous, & most adored, cultural icons. A fascinating gay man of the 20th century. How about Adrien Brody in the title role of the film of his life story?