Line #24 Creator/JeanMarais


1	[[quoteright:325:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jeanmarais.png]]
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3	Jean Alfred Villain-Marais, better known as Jean Marais (11 December 1913 – 8 November 1998), was a French stage and screen actor, writer, stage director, and {{sculptor\|s}}.
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5	He was TheMuse, primary performer and longtime lover of [[RenaissanceMan multifaceted artist]] Creator/JeanCocteau, who directed ''Film/{{Beauty and the Beast\|1946}}'', his [[StarMakingRole big screen break]] at age 33 (he had been acting on stage since the age of 20, in both the classic French repertoire and all of Cocteau's plays), and ''Film/{{Orpheus}}'', Marais' other famous role at the time.
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7	He became a prominent leading man in TheFifties and TheSixties, particularly in {{swashbuckler}} (such as ''Film/{{Le Bossu\|1959}}'' and ''Film/LeCapitan'') and {{action\|Genre}} films (such as the ''Film/{{Fantomas}}'' film series). Marais performed in over 100 films in total, and in 1996 he was awarded the French Legion of Honor for his contributions to French cinema. He devoted his time to {{sculpture\|s}} in the last years of his life, influenced by a friend of his and Cocteau's, German sculptor Arno Breker, who protected both Cocteau and Marais from German occupation authorities during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.
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9	In the 1960s, he adopted a young man, Serge Ayala, who eventually took the name Serge Villain-Marais. Serge became a singer and an actor, and committed suicide in 2012 at age 69.
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11	!!His roles included:
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13	* ''Film/{{Beauty and the Beast\|1946}}'' (1946) as the Beast [[ActingForTwo and]] Avenant
14	* ''Les Chouans'' (1947) as the Marquis of Montauran
15	* ''Theatre/RuyBlas'' (1948) as Ruy Blas and Don César de Bazan
16	* ''Film/{{Orpheus}}'' (1950) as Orpheus
17	* ''DerivativeWorks/TheCountOfMonteCristo'' (1954) as Edmond Dantès/Count of Monte Cristo
18	* ''Film/SchoolForLove'' (1955) as Eric Walter
19	* ''[[Film/Napoleon1955 Napoléon]]'' (1955) as Charles-Tristan de Montholon
20	* ''Film/ElenaAndHerMen'' (1956) as Gen. Rollan
21	* ''Film/LaTourPrendsGarde'' (1958) as Henri la Tour
22	* ''Film/TheTestamentOfOrpheus'' (1959) as Œdipus (cameo)
23	* ''Film/{{Le Bossu\|1959}}'' (1959) as Henri de Lagardère
24	* ''Film/{{Austerlitz}}'' (1960) as Lazare Carnot
25	* ''Film/LeCapitan'' (1960) as François de Capestang
26	* ''Film/TheMiracleOfTheWolves'' (1961) as Robert de Neuville
27	* ''Film/LeCapitaineFracasse'' (1961) as Baron Philippe de Sigognac
28	* ''The Mysteries of Paris'' (1962) as Rodolphe de Sambreuil
29	* ''Film/{{The Iron Mask\|1962}}'' (1962) as [[Literature/TheThreeMusketeers Charles D'Artagnan]]
30	* ''Film/{{Fantomas}}'' film series (1964-1967) as Fandor [[ActingForTwo and]] Fantômas
31	* ''Film/TheSaintLiesInWait'' (1966) as [[Franchise/TheSaint Simon Templar]]
32	* ''Film/{{Parking\|1985}}'' (1985) as Hades
33	* ''[[Film/LesMiserables1995 Les Misérables]]'' (1995) as Bishop Bienvenu Myriel [[ActingForTwo and]] the 1942 bishop
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35	!!Tropes and Trivia about him:
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37	* ActingForTwo: He played two different roles in the same film in ''Beauty and the Beast'', in ''Ruy Blas'' and in the ''Fantômas'' trilogy (Fantômas was voiced by the [[EvilSoundsDeep much deeper-sounding]] Raymond Pellegrin in the latter films). There's also his double role as Bishop Bienvenu Myriel and a French bishop during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII in the 1995 Claude Lelouch film ''Les Misérables''.
38	* BannedInChina: His staging of Racine's ''Andromaque'' only happened one evening on May 22, 1944 while it was supposed to be a full season. The reason? The amount of [[invoked]][[HoYay homoerotic subtext]] between Marais and actor Alain Cuny were too much for the taste of Vichy French authorities.
39	* BasedOnATrueStory: On June 22, 1941, Jean Marais inflicted a beatdown on critic Alain Laubreaux at a Parisian restaurant. Laubreaux was a homophobic and antisemitic [[LesCollaborateurs collaborationist]] who lambasted the plays of Marais' lover Jean Cocteau and Marais' stage acting purely out of Nazi-compatible ideological bias. This event inspired a similar scene in ''Film/TheLastMetro''.
40	* BlueBlood: He played a lot of nobility characters (though [[ImpoverishedPatrician not always wealthy]]).
41	* KnightInShiningArmor: His TypeCasting in 1950s/1960s French swashbucking films in a nutshell. A man of honor who fights for justice and stops at nothing to protect his friends and loved ones. ''The Iron Mask'' stands out among these with his humorous and LargeHam take on the character of D'Artagnan, and he gets to ''[[ComedicSpanking spank]]'' a lady (Creator/ClaudineAuger) as punishment in it.
42	* MayDecemberRomance: In the 1960s, he was often romantically paired on film with actresses who were 20 years younger than him or more.
43	* ProductionPosse: Outside Jean Cocteau, he regularly worked with director André Hunebelle on swashbuckler and action films, with Creator/GuyDelorme as either TheDragon or a {{mook\|s}}, and Gil Delamare then Creator/RemyJulienne for the car stunts. Jean Marion often composed the soundtracks.
44	* RomanceOnTheSet: He had an affair with actress Mila Parély on the set of ''Lit à colonnes'' in 1941. It was the only straight relationship of his life, and he even planned to marry her (which his lover Jean Cocteau reluctantly consented to) but it didn't go through.
45	* {{Swashbuckler}}: Starting in the late 1950s, he played quite a few dashing swashbuckling heroes in TheCavalierYears, in films such as ''La Tour prends garde!'', ''Le Bossu'', ''Le Capitan'', ''Le Capitaine Fracasse'' (which introduced his younger stage successor in Cocteau's plays Creator/GerardBarray to the genre) and ''The Iron Mask''.
46	* WhatCouldHaveBeen: One of the reasons the fourth ''Film/{{Fantomas}}'' film never got made was Marais growing tired of the series and resenting the [[SpotlightStealingSquad spotlight-stealing]] by Creator/LouisDeFunes, who by then had a meteoric rise to superstardom.

Context Creator / JeanMarais