Barrault, Jean-Louis (1910-1994)

French actor, stage director, and producer. He was producer and director to the Comédie Française 1940-46, and set up the Compagnie Renaud-Barrault in 1946 with his wife Madeleine Renaud. He appeared in such films as La Symphonie fantastique (1942) and La Ronde (1950), and as the mime Baptiste in Marcel Carné's cinema classic Les Enfants du Paradis (1945).

Barrault became director of the Théâtre de France (formerly Odéon) in 1958, and presented a wide repertory, including a production of Eugène Ionesco's Rhinocéros, playing the lead himself. He was dismissed in 1968 because of statements made during the student unrest of that year, but continued to stage shows and spectacles in Paris and around the world.

Barrault's first independent production was Autour d'une Mère, a mime drama based on William Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying. This led to film roles and, while acting in Hélène (1936), to his meeting Renaud His production of Paul Claudel's Le Soulier de satin/The Satin Shoe established his reputation as a director.