Information AboutColette |
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Colette {Link without Title} was the pen name of the French Novelist '''Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette''' ( January 28 , 1873 – August 3 , 1954 ). EARLY LIFE, MARRIAGE She was born in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye , Yonne , in the Burgundy Region of France , the daughter of Jules-Joseph Colette and Adele Eugenie Sidonie Landoy ('Sido'). In 1893 she married Henri Gauthier-Villars, who was 15 years her senior. Her first books, the '' acts with other women for his own amusement. {Link without Title} LESBIANISM She divorced the unfaithful Gauthier-Villars in 1906 and took up work in the , and the Italian writer Gabriele D'Annunzio . On stage she caused a sensation once, miming copulation on one occasion (which caused a riot at the Moulin Rouge), and baring a breast on another. {Link without Title} SECOND MARRIAGE, AFFAIR WITH STEPSON In 1912 Colette married Henri De Jouvenel , the editor of the newspaper '' Le Matin ''. The couple had one daughter, Colette De Jouvenel , known to the family as Bel-Gazou. Colette de Jouvenel later stated that her mother did not want a child and left her daughter in the care of an English nanny, only rarely coming to visit her. In 1914, during World War I , Colette was approached to write a ballet for the Opéra de Paris which she outlined under the title "Divertissements pour ma fille". After Colette herself chose . THIRD MARRIAGE Colette married Maurice Goudeket in 1935, making her full name Sidonie Gabrielle Claudine Colette Gauthier-Villars de Jouvenel Goudeket. CONTINUED WRITINGS Post-war, her writing career bloomed following the publication of '' Chéri '' (1920). Chéri tells a story of the end of a six-year affair between an aging retired Courtesan , Léa, and a pampered young man, Chéri. Turning stereotypes upside-down, it is Chéri who wears silk pyjamas and Léa's pearls, and who is the object of gaze. And in the end Léa demonstrates all the survival skills which Colette associates with feminity. (The story continued in ''The Last of Chéri'' (1951), which contrasts Léa's strength and Chéri's fragility, culminating in his suicide). After ''Cheri'' Colette entered the world of modern poetry and paintings centered around Jean Cocteau , who was later her neighbor in Palais Royale . The relationship and life is vividly depicted in their books. By 1927 she was frequently acclaimed as France's greatest woman writer. "It ... has no plot, and yet tells of three lives all that should be known," wrote Jannet Flanner of ''Sido'' on its publication in 1930. "Once again, and at greater length than usual, she has been hailed for her genius, humanities and perfect prose by those literary journals which years ago ... lifted nothing at all in her direction except the finger of scorn." She published around fifty Novel s in total, many with autobiographical elements. Her themes can be roughly divided into idyllic natural tales or dark struggles in relationships and love. All her novels were marked by clever observation and dialogue with an intimate, explicit style. Her most popular novel, '' Gigi '', was made into a Broadway play as well as a highly successful Hollywood Motion Picture with the title '' Gigi '' starring Maurice Chevalier , Louis Jourdan , and Leslie Caron . LEGACY A controversial figure throughout her life, Colette flaunted her lesbian affairs, and collaborated with the Vichy Regime during World War II - while at the same time aiding her Jewish friends. She was a member of the Belgian Royal Academy (1935), president of the Académie Goncourt (1945) (and the first woman to be admitted into it), and a Chevalier (1920) and a Grand Officier (1953) of the Légion D'honneur . When she died in Paris on August 3 , 1954 , she was given a state funeral, although she was refused Roman Catholic rites because of her divorce. Colette is interred in Le Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. .]] NOTABLE WORKS
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