Jean Marais; Longtime French Movie Star

Jean Marais, the French actor who began his career as the protege of surrealist artist Jean Cocteau and became a pillar of the French cinema, has died. He was 84.

Hospitalized in June with malnutrition, Marais died Sunday at the Broussailles hospital in Cannes.

Marais was born Dec. 11, 1913, in Cherbourg. Twice rejected from France’s top drama schools after dropping out of school at 16, Marais went on to make 75 films and become one of the nation’s most popular movie stars--thanks to Cocteau.

The two met in 1937 when Marais was working as an apprentice photographer. Marais’ good looks and strong personality appealed to Cocteau, and the two became inseparable lovers until Cocteau’s death in 1963.

The relationship fired Cocteau’s imagination, inspiring plays, films, poems and drawings.

Marais was best known for his role as the beast in Cocteau’s 1946 classic, “The Beauty and the Beast.”

The actor’s roles included “Les Parents Terribles” in 1948, “Orphee” in 1949 and “Le Testament d’Orphee” in 1960.

He also starred in “The Hunchback” and was a swashbuckling hero in films such as “Le Capitan” and the “Fantomas” series with Louis de Funes.

“Today, many French have lost a bit of dream and youth,” said President Jacques Chirac, praising Marais as an “immense actor” and “man of feeling.”

Marais worked with top directors, including Jean Renoir, Luchino Visconti and Abel Gance.

His last film was “Stealing Beauty” in 1996, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, in which he had a small role as an art historian in Tuscany.

“For Bertolucci, I would play a shadow on a wall,” he told a British newspaper during filming. “He is a true poet of cinema, like Cocteau.”

Last year, Marais starred on stage at the famed Paris cabaret Les Folies Bergeres in “L’Arlesienne,” an 1872 romantic tragedy.

He published several books about his life, and had a show of his art in 1995.

He leaves one adopted son, Serge.