French actress Yvonne de Bray was BOTD in 1889. Born in Paris to an aristocratic family, she made her stage debut at the age of eight opposite theatre star Sarah Bernhardt. She made a successful transition to adult roles, becoming a popular stage actress during the 1920s. She was in a ten-year relationship with playwright Henry Bataille, performing in several of his plays, notably La tendresse and La possession. After his death in 1922, she announced her retirement from acting. De Bray had a well-publicised relationship with the athlete Violette Morris during the 1930s. Cocteau’s 1940 play Les Monstres sacrés (The Sacred Monsters), written while staying with de Bray and Morris on board their houseboat, was inspired by their relationship. In 1938, Jean Cocteau persuaded her to appear in his stage play Les parents terribles, in a role written for her, though health problems required her to withdraw. She made her screen debut in the 1943 film L’Eternel Retour (The Eternal Return), scripted by Cocteau and co-starring his lover Jean Marais. The three reunited again for Cocteau’s L’Aigle à deux têtes (The Eagle Has Two Heads) and the film adaptation of Les parents terribles, both released in 1948. She also worked with director Jacqueline Audry in an adaptation of Colette‘s novella Gigi, and in Olivia, one of the first French films to openly depict lesbian relationships. She made her final film appearance in 1953 in Jean-Pierre Melville’s Quand tu liras cette lettre (When You Read This Letter). She died in 1954, aged 66.