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Maitresse
Francine Weisweiller, who died in France last December 18 was one
of the last of a breed of rich women who came to maturity before
the women’s movement who forged their identities through total
patronage of the arts and especially the artist. Madame Weisweiller
established herself in the historical context of the career of Jean
Cocteau. The following is her story, as told in an obituary from
the Telegraph of London.
Francine Weisweiller, who has died aged 87, was the devoted if long-suffering
patron of the avant-garde painter, poet, writer and film-maker, Jean
Cocteau.
In the words of John Richardson, Picasso's biographer, Madame Weisweiller
was an "exquisitely dressed, excessively spoiled little beauty",
who appointed herself as Cocteau's muse. Cocteau proved to be "the
man who came to dinner": he accepted an invitation to stay at
her villa on Cap Ferrat, and remained a more or less permanent fixture
for the next 12 years.
Cocteau did not arrive alone. He brought with him his dreamily silent
boyfriend (or "adopted son"), Edouard Dermit, who had been
his gardener and was put into some of his films; later, they were
joined by Dermit's sister, Emilienne. The group, John Richardson
has recalled, "would spend their summers together bound together
as much by mutual admiration - a sort of collective narcissism -
as by opium".
This not wholly unpredictable arrangement came about as Cocteau ran
out of funds when making the film of Les Enfants Terribles in 1949.
The director, Jean-Pierre Melville, had the ingenious idea of seeking
the richest woman they could find, a person of no artistic merit,
yet anxious to be noticed in artistic circles. They found Francine
Weisweiller, in whose Paris home, No 4 Place des Etats-Unis, part
of the film was being made. She came up trumps, was soon being addressed
by Cocteau as "My dear friend", and proceeded to invite
Cocteau and his ménage to stay with her in May 1950, at Santo-Sospir,
her summer villa near the lighthouse at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.
Cocteau settled in, relishing the views of the Mediterranean from
the terraces and gardens thick with hibiscus. Luxury was offered
to him, and like a cat, he curled up and purred. He loved the afternoon
excursions in the Weisweiller yacht, Orphée II, the chauffeur-driven
Bentley always to hand, and the visits to Greece, Spain and St Moritz
- where the hairdresser, Alexandre, would ply his way about the Palace
Hotel, demonstrating new hairstyles to his ladies.
The relationship was not a sexual one, and in many respects it was
cosy and happy. When at the villa, the party seldom dined out, accepting
invitations only from Aly Khan, the Begum Aga Khan and the Agnellis.
They entertained Picasso, Marlene Dietrich, Garbo, and other such
figures.
Nor was Cocteau unwilling to sing for his supper. While staying with
Francine, he wrote his play, Bacchus, which he dedicated to her.
He covered part of the wall above a fireplace with his distinctive
line drawings; and once he had started, he was unable to stop until,
two years later, every wall of the villa was covered with fish-like
profiles, phallic symbols, eyes and arabesques. Madame Weisweiller
looked on enraptured as her salon was transformed into a Cocteau
aquarium. He, meanwhile, found himself, he said, living with people
he loved and becoming "a kind of Tibetan sage".
Francine Weisweiller was born Francine Worms in Brazil on June 9
1916, the daughter of Armand Worms, a prosperous French Jew who had
emigrated to Sao Paolo and opened a jeweller's shop. A fair-sized
family fortune derived from Armand's mother, a member of the Deutsch
de la Meurthe family, from Alsace, which had developed the automobile
and aviation industry, and introduced the first petrol pumps into
France.
In 1919, when Francine was three, the family returned to France.
She was a beautiful child, with golden locks, who escaped from home
by marrying at 17, and then divorcing a few months later. Her parents
were horrified and disowned her for a time; so she earned her living
in Paris as a beautician with Elizabeth Arden. At the outbreak of
the Second World War she nursed wounded soldiers at l'Hotel-Dieu.
Her parents swiftly retreated to Sao Paolo, but by this time Francine
had met Alec Weisweiller, a banker and racehorse owner whose fortune
derived from Shell Oil. They fell in love, departed for the free
zone of the Côte d'Azur after the invasion of France and were
married in June 1941, Francine becoming part heiress to his fortune.
A daughter, Carole, was (by her own account) conceived on the beach
near the Cap d'Antibes, and born in 1942.
Although Jewish, the Weisweillers remained in the South of France,
sometimes under the name "Lelestrier", and Francine stole
lemons from gardens for her infant. For much of the war the family
was itinerant in France.
In the late 1940s they moved into No 4 Place des Etats-Unis (a Deutsch
de la Meurthe house), where their neighbours were Marie-Laure de
Noailles, and the Duchesse de la Rochefoucauld. Resembling the film-star
Veronica Lake, Francine lived an elegant life, with couture clothes
made for her by Lucien Lelong and Balenciaga, and scarves by Roger
Vivier. She was an important early patron of Yves Saint Laurent,
who ever afterwards dressed her for free in gratitude. In the decoration
and adornment of her homes, she was much influenced by Madeleine
Castaing.
Everything was well ordered and well arranged until Jean Cocteau
appeared in her life. She was ready for him, since she was beginning
to find the rich society of haute juiverie restricting, and longing
to be a figure in Tout Paris. Her meeting with Cocteau proved the
way forward, there being a neat balance between his need for substantial
funding and her desire for advancement into a bright new world. Francine
was essentially a lonely woman, not devoid of sentiment, and she
was happy to put her fortune at the disposal of her very own genius-in-residence.
They were soon inseparable.
The Weisweiller ménage was arranged in a civilised manner.
Alec, the husband, lived mainly in Paris, where his mistress was
the actress, Simone Simon (star of The Cat People and La Ronde).
He seldom appeared in the South of France. When the family was in
Paris, Alec presided at the dinners, and was on good terms with Cocteau,
who lived elsewhere. But he was jealous of Cocteau's role in the
life of his daughter Carole, who saw Cocteau as a surrogate father.
Francine introduced Cocteau to her brother, who ran Editions du Rocher
and who from then on published Cocteau's work. When Cocteau suffered
a near fatal heart attack in Paris in 1954, he was immediately moved
into Francine's house on the Place des Etats-Unis, where the best
cardiologists were summoned to attend him.
Francine was also to the fore in the campaign to secure Cocteau election
to the French Academy. All the necessary figures were lavishly entertained.
In 1955 Cocteau was duly elected, and Mauriac welcomed him with a
sharp profile in the Figaro Litteraire. "He did not stumble
into our Assembly dazed. He has had his eye fixed on the door for
quite some time, waiting for it to open a crack so that he could
slip in."
For the introduction ceremony, he ordered his costume from Lanvin,
and he required a special sword. Madame Weisweiller commissioned
this from Cartier, with Picasso designs on the hilt, a handle resembling
a Greek profile, and representations of the Palais-Royal and Cocteau's
own signature. Twelve thousand people queued for 700 seats to hear
his provocative speech of acceptance; Queen Elisabeth of the Belgians,
literary figures and journalists were in the Cupola, all of them
invited by Cocteau. In June 1956 Francine was again at his side when
he collected an honorary doctorate of literature from Oxford University.
Francine even played a cameo role in Cocteau's pretentious film,
Le Testament d'Orphée, dressed in a second empire Balenciaga
dress, and accompanied by her own butler. Some scenes were filmed
at Santo-Sospir and some on her yacht. And so it seemed set to continue;
but after an attack of bronchitis at Kitzbuhl in 1957, Francine's
health began to fail. The bronchitis later became chronic, and as
the years went by, in the words of her daughter, she wore the illness
like "a second skin".
Then, in 1960, aged 45, she felt the need to seduce. As her daughter
put it, a bad writer nicknamed "Mirliflore" (his real name
was Henri Viard) caught her in his web and imposed his presence on
the family. John Richardson described him as "more macho, less
obtrusive". Meanwhile, according to Cocteau's perceptive biographer
Frederick Brown, Francine tired of having Cocteau in the house. He
demanded from her "the undivided attention of a mother, the
ready spirit of a playmate, and the devotion of a cultist".
Quarrels and arguments became frequent, until Cocteau packed his
bags and retreated to Villefranche, finally settling for good at
his home at Milly-la-Forêt.
Jean Marais tried to breach the rift, but Francine remained cool
until October 1963, when she paid Cocteau a visit, hoping to effect
a reconciliation. She was greeted with his words: "You bring
death with you!" And so it proved. On October 11 1963, Edith
Piaf died and Cocteau was engrossed in delivering tributes to her,
one of which was broadcast on French radio. Attempting to answer
a telephone call about another Piaf tribute, he suffered a pulmonary
oedema and died. Francine attended his funeral.
The later years were sad. The Weisweiller fortune dissolved "like
snow in the sun"; the Paris house and collections were sold.
Estranged from her husband, and sometimes resented by her daughter,
Francine retreated to a lonely life at Santo-Sospir. The villa went
to sleep, the telephone did not ring, the hall table was devoid of
letters. All that remained were Cocteau's adornments.
Francine lived on in poor health, past the celebrations in France
marking the 40th anniversary of Cocteau's death this year, and died
at the villa on December 8. |
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