(1910-1994)
Actor. Jean-Louis Barrault got his start on the Paris stage at the Atelier in 1931. He became acquainted with Antonin Artaud and the surrealists in 1935, and then went on to debut in film while continuing his stage career, acting alongside his wife, Madeleine Renaud. The two formed a renowned theatrical company, the Compagnie Renaud-Barrault in 1946.
Barrault's first film role was in Marc Allégret's Les Beaux jours (1935). The following year, he was cast in Abel Gance's Le Grand amour de Beethoven (1936) and Allégret's Sous les yeux d'occident (1936), as well as two Marcel Carné films, Drôle de Drame (1936) and Jenny (1936). Barrault worked again with Allégret in 1938 in the film Orage and in 1941 in Parade en sept nuits. He worked with Gance again in 1938 on the film J'Accuse! One of Barrault's most memorable roles came in 1945, in Carné's classic film Les Enfants du paradis.
Barrault tended to be cast as powerful, almost mythical men, but men who were sometimes physically challenged or physically unimpressive. He played Louis XI in Christian-Jacques and Sacha Guitry's Les Perles de la couronne (1937) and Napoleon in Ettore Scola's La Nuit de Varennes (1982), for example. The mythical quality extended even to his completely fictional roles, such as Baptiste in Les Enfants du paradis, probably one of the most memorable characters in French film history. Other films in which Barrault appears include Anatole Litvak's Mayerling (1936), Max Ophuls's classic film La Ronde (1950), Guitry's Si Versailles m'était conté (1954), and Philippe Agostini's Le Dialogue des Carmélites (1960). Barrault also had a significant, but unusual, English-language role in the classic war film The Longest Day (1962).
Historical Dictionary of French Cinema by Dayna Oscherwitz & Mary Ellen Higgins
Guide to cinema. Academic. 2011.