She sponsored The Testament Of Orpheus, and several sequences of the film were shot at Santo Sospir. She and her brother Gérard were partners in the publishing company Editions du Rocher, which published most of Cocteau's books in the 1950s. Cocteau, Dermit and Francine appear in it.įor the next decade, Francine was seen with Cocteau at bullfights, on cruises and parties. The following year, Cocteau made his only film in colour, a 16-minute short, in which his camera prowls around Santo Sospir, lingering on the murals and the garden. In return, she enabled Cocteau to gain financial security.ĭuring April and September 1950, Cocteau began to paint the interior of the villa using his favourite Greek mythological subjects, Minerva, Oedipus, Orpheus and Tiresias, as motifs, some of which had the profiles of "Doudou" (Dermit), who was with him at the villa, and Jean Marais. She was more interested in the artistic life than horses, and being on intimate terms with Cocteau guaranteed that she mixed with some of the greatest artists of the day, including Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, Colette, Francis Poulenc, Jean Genet and Edith Piaf. Her husband was an industrialist, who settled in France, where he owned a stable of racehorses. She was born Francine Worms into a wealthy family. She also invited Cocteau to spend several days at Santo Sospir, her villa in Cap-Ferrat. She immediately convinced her husband not only to allow the crew to use their chic Paris apartment for some scenes, but got him to invest money in the production. It was mutual, if platonic, love at first sight between the 33-year-old socialite and the 60-year-old artist. They were introduced by her cousin, Nicole Stéphane (the stage name of Nicole de Rothschild), who was playing the young girl in an unhealthily obsessive relationship with her brother (played by Dermit). A companion explained that Weisweiller "formed part of the décor of his life".įrancine and Alec Weisweiller, her American millionaire husband, first met Cocteau in 1949 on the stage of the Thétre Pigalle, where much of the film of Les Enfants Terribles was being shot. Cocteau enjoyed the company of wealthy women such as the Comtesse Anna de Noailles (who financed his first film, The Blood Of The Poet in 1933), Coco Chanel and Weisweiller.
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