Jean-Jean & Jean

Cocteau's first great love lived sensually and died a hero.

Jean Desbordes (1906 — 1944) in his sailor suit. This image appeared on the cover of the first copies of J’adore.

Jean Cocteau should have been a pop star. 

If he’d been born some decades later, he could have had a songwriting catalog that would put our most lovelorn musicians to shame. A man famously unlucky in love, his lovers – mostly male, but on occasion female – were usually captivating and gorgeous, sometimes with brilliant minds themselves. The proof of this is on display throughout the entirety of Cocteau’s oeuvre; his work is strewn with more hunks than Santa Monica Boulevard on a sunny June day. 

Cocteau was often struck by the curse of unreciprocated love. The most famous instance of this was with his (extremely) young protégé, Raymond Radiguet, whose tragic death at the age of 20 was devastating to Cocteau. In his lifetime, Radiguet (nicknamed “Monsieur Bébé” by Cocteau) often emotionally tortured The Poet (and what Poet isn’t tortured? According to a certain blonde pop star, there’s enough for an entire department). Radiguet preferred the company of women, although it’s suggested that he would exploit the affections of the older men who offered him introductions to le tout Paris. This was the heyday of 1920s Paris, and Ernest Hemingway once recounted an incensed Cocteau spitting, “Bébé est vicieuse. Il aime les femmes”. (Loosely translated,“Bébé is depraved. He loves women.” A read before the term originated in gay subculture, please note that ‘vicieuse’ here is used in the feminine). 

But not all of Cocteau’s love stories were one-sided. He is believed to have had two great reciprocated loves in his life; both, coincidentally, named Jean, and both men who, despite many flaws and shortcomings, were examples of bravery and humanity in life and love. One’s story ended tragically, and the other lived on to become one of Cocteau’s most enduring icons. Today, I’m writing about the former.