Jean Marais

Born Jean-Alfred Villain-Marais on 11 December 1913, he became the lover of Jean Cocteau in 1937, igniting a creative partnership that remade both men. Cocteau cast him as the Beast in Beauty and the Beast in 1946, fixing Marais's image as something between danger and grace. The war ended and he became France's swashbuckler of choice, leaping through hit after hit while Cocteau's camera kept finding him. They remained close long after the affair cooled, and Marais spent his later years painting, sculpting, writing, photographing - and guarding Cocteau's legacy as if it were his own. In 1996 France gave him the Legion of Honor; he died two years later, on 8 November 1998.