Édith Piaf was a French singer, lyricist and actress. Noted as France's national chanteuse, she was one of the country's most widely known international stars.
Orpheus is a 1950 French film directed by Jean Cocteau and starring Jean Marais. It is the central part of Cocteau's Orphic Trilogy, which consists of The Blood of a Poet (1930), Orpheus (1950), and Testament of Orpheus (1960).
Jean-Jacques Lebel is a French visual artist, poet, art collector, writer, political activist, and creator of artistic events. Besides his heterogeneous artworks and poetry, Lebel is also known for his very early work with the Beat Generation and Happenings, as an art theory writer with close ties to Félix Guattari, Gilles Deleuze and the American poetry and art scene. He is also an art curator and son of Robert Lebel; a poet, translator, poetry publisher, political activist, art collector, art historian and expert in the work of Marcel Duchamp.
Jean-Alfred Villain-Marais, known professionally as Jean Marais, was a French actor, film director, theatre director, painter, sculptor, visual artist, writer and photographer. He performed in over 100 films and was the muse and lover of acclaimed director Jean Cocteau. In 1996, he was awarded the French Legion of Honor for his contributions to French Cinema.
Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, born Joseph-Casimir Rabearivelo, was a Malagasy poet who is widely considered to be Africa's first modern poet and the greatest literary artist of Madagascar. Part of the first generation raised under French colonization, Rabearivelo grew up impoverished and failed to complete secondary education. His passion for French literature and traditional Malagasy poetry (ohabolana) prompted him to read extensively and educate himself on a variety of subjects, including the French language and its poetic and prose traditions. He published his first poems as an adolescent in local literary reviews, soon obtaining employment at a publishing house where he worked as a proofreader and editor of its literary journals. He published numerous poetry anthologies in French and Malagasy as well as literary critiques, an opera, and two novels.
Testament of Orpheus is a 1960 black-and-white film with a few seconds of color film spliced in. Directed by and starring Jean Cocteau, who plays himself as an 18th-century poet, the film includes cameo appearances by Pablo Picasso, Jean Marais, Charles Aznavour, Jean-Pierre Leaud, and Yul Brynner. It is considered the final part of The Orphic Trilogy, following The Blood of a Poet (1930) and Orphée (1950).
Les Parents terribles is a 1938 French play written by Jean Cocteau. Despite initial problems with censorship, it was revived on the French stage several times after its original production, and in 1948 a film adaptation directed by Cocteau was released. English-language versions have been produced under various titles including Intimate Relations and Indiscretions.
André Salmon was a French poet, art critic and writer. He was one of the early defenders of Cubism, with Guillaume Apollinaire and Maurice Raynal.
Silvia Monfort was a French actress and theatre director. She was the daughter of the sculptor Charles-Maurice Favre-Bertin and the wife of Pierre Gruneberg. She was named a Knight of the Legion of Honour in 1973, an Officer of Arts and Letters in 1979, and a Commander of Arts and Letters in 1983. She is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery.
María Casares was a Spanish-born French actress and one of the most distinguished stars of the French stage and cinema. She was credited in France as Maria Casarès.
Pierre Delanoë, born Pierre Charles Marcel Napoléon Leroyer in Paris, France, was a French lyricist who wrote thousands of songs for dozens of singers, including Dalida, Edith Piaf, Charles Aznavour, Petula Clark, Johnny Hallyday, Joe Dassin, Michel Sardou and Mireille Mathieu. Delanoë was his grandmother's maiden name.
Marcel Detienne was a Belgian historian and specialist in the study of ancient Greece. He was a professor at Johns Hopkins University, where he held the Basil L. Gildersleeve chair in Classics.
Les Parents terribles is a 1948 film adaptation directed by Jean Cocteau from his own stage play Les Parents terribles. Cocteau used the same cast who had appeared in a successful stage revival of the play in Paris in 1946. The film has sometimes been known by the English title The Storm Within.
L'Aigle à deux têtes is a French play in three acts by Jean Cocteau, written in 1943 and first performed in 1946. It is known variously in English as The Eagle with Two Heads, The Eagle Has Two Heads, The Two-Headed Eagle, The Double-Headed Eagle, and Eagle Rampant. The title refers to the double-headed eagle of heraldry. Cocteau also directed a film of his play which appeared in 1948.
Jean Hugo was a painter, illustrator, theatre designer and author. He was born in Paris and died in his home at the Mas de Fourques, near Lunel, France. Brought up in a lively artistic environment, he began teaching himself drawing and painting and wrote essays and poetry from a very early age. His artistic career spans the 20th century, from his early sketches of the First World War, through the creative ferment of the Parisian interwar years, and up to his death in 1984. He was part of a number of artistic circles that included Jean Cocteau, Raymond Radiguet, Pablo Picasso, Georges Auric, Erik Satie, Blaise Cendrars, Marie-Laure de Noailles, Paul Eluard, Francis Poulenc, Charles Dullin, Louis Jouvet, Colette, Marcel Proust, Jacques Maritain, Max Jacob, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Marie Bell, Louise de Vilmorin, Cecil Beaton and many others.
Le Bal du comte d'Orgel is a French novel by Raymond Radiguet (1903–1923). The second and last novel by the Parisian author, it was published posthumously in 1924. Set as a love triangle during the années folles, it proved controversial, as did his first psychological novel, Le Diable au corps, published in 1923. Le Bal du comte d'Orgel was adapted into a 1970 film.
Les Compagnons de la chanson were a French harmony vocal group, formed in 1946 from an earlier group founded in Lyon, France in 1941. Their best known song was "Les trois cloches" recorded with Edith Piaf in 1946. They were eight or nine members in the group, and they were popular in France with some success internationally, and they continued to perform until 1985.
Pierre Torreilles was a French writer, poet and editor.
The Jean Cocteau House was the residence of the French poet, artist, playwright and film maker Jean Cocteau (1889–1963), which he purchased with the film actor Jean Marais in 1947, and where he created many of his later works before his death in 1963. It is located about fifty kilometers south of Paris in the village of Milly-la-Forêt in the Essonne Department of France. The 16th century house was originally part of the domain of a 13th-century chateau whose moat and a ruined tower are next to the house. The house also has gardens and a small wooded park. The house now displays furnished rooms and a museum of his work. The tomb of Cocteau, decorated with his work, is found in a small chapel, Saint Blaise des Simples, at the edge of town not from the house. The house facade and roof were listed in the supplemental inventory of historic monuments in 1969.
Orphée is a chamber opera in two acts and 18 scenes, for ensemble and soloists, composed in 1991 by Philip Glass, to a libretto by the composer, based on the scenario of the eponymous film (1950) by Jean Cocteau. Commissioned by the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York, this is the first part of a trilogy in honour of the French poet. The world premiere of the work took place on 14 May 1993 under the direction of Martin Goldray and the European premiere in London on 27 May 2005 in the Royal Opera House's Linbury Studio Theatre.
