French actor, director and artist Jean Marais was BOTD in 1913. Born in Cherbourg, he became interested in acting as a teenager, applying unsuccessfully to study at the Conservatoire de Paris. After moving to Paris, he worked as a photographer’s apprentice, playing bit parts with the Comédie-Française and in films. Despite his leonine beauty and muscular physique, his thin voice and lack of technique hindered his acting career. In 1937, he met filmmaker and artist Jean Cocteau, becoming his lover and muse, starring in several of his stage productions. During World War Two, he joined Charles de Gaulle’s Free Forces, winning the Croix de Guerre. After the war, Cocteau cast Marais as a sexy monster in La Belle et la bête (Beauty and the Beast), launching him to stardom. Their subsequent collaborations included L’Aigle à deux têtes (The Eagle with Two Heads), Les Parents terribles (released in English as The Storm Within), Le Secret de Mayerling (The Secret of Mayerling) and Orphée (Orpheus). During the 1950s, Marais became one of European cinema’s most popular leading men, working with filmmakers including René Clément, Jean Renoir, Luchino Visconti and Jacques Demy. In the 1960s, he starred in a series of hugely successful historical epics and spy films, playing both hero and villain in the comedy Fantomas. He performed on stage into his 80s, directing theatre productions of Cocteau’s plays, and became a noted sculptor. After separating from Cocteau, he had a decade-long relationship with the American dancer George Reich and was rumoured to be the lover of King Umberto II of Italy. Marais died in 1998, aged 84, shortly after completing his final film, Bernardo Bertolucci’s Stealing Beauty.