Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau

[Anonymous]

Jean Cocteau was born in Maisons-Lafitte into a wealthy Parisian family, which also was politically prominent. His father was a lawyer and amateur painter, who committed suicide when Cocteau was nine. However, he had a lasting influence on his son. It is said that this tragic event also created Cocteau's awareness of human weakness, which he compensated by putting himself in the service of the performing arts and the mysterious forces in the universe. Poetry was for Cocteau the basis of all art, a "religion without hope".

It has said that Cocteau was also the Grand Master of a secret brotherhood, the Priority of Sion, originally founded in Jerusalem in 1099. Cocteau appeared on the list of Sion's alleged Grand Masters as Jean XIII.

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/cocteau.htm

During World War II, as Mr. Steegmuller points out, Cocteau was not a ''gross collaborator,'' though he maintained correct and even cordial relations with some of the Nazis occupying France. But at the same time, he was far from a resister of Fascist tyranny. He continued to put on his plays, to carry out his artistic life in something close to a normal way.

''Certain kinds of fortitude were not to be expected of him, while a taste for ultimate novelty in however bizarre a form might be predicted,'' Mr. Steegmuller has written, referring to ''the relish he expressed for the 'excitement' of the Nazis' arrival.''

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... gewanted=2

Many of the ornaments of French culture positively embraced the Nazis. Poet and playwright Jean Cocteau, fashion designer Coco Chanel, and film star Arletty (all homosexuals, for what it's worth), plus Sacha Guitry (France's John Barrymore), were on permanent display as proud hosts of the Nazis, even as Jews and various other undesirables were being deported to Auschwitz. At the Liberation, punishment for such figures was at best haphazard. Chanel was forced into retirement for about a decade. Cocteau got off scot free, perhaps because he was a witty, charming gentleman.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... 88595/pg_3