Word: cocteau
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Fauré gave her piano lessons. Ravel dedicated La Valse to her. Stravinsky presented her with the score of Le Sucre du Printemps. Diaghilev made her his ally; she was the only woman with whom he could feel intimate. Toulouse-Lautrec, Bonnard, Vuillard, Renoir, Vallotton painted her, sometimes obsessively. Cocteau modeled the heroine of his novel Thomas l'lmposteur on her. In the masterly hands of Proust she became two people, Princess Yourbeletieff, the young sponsor of the Ballets Russes: "One might have supposed that this marvelous creature had been imported in their innumerable baggage, and as their most...
...died in 1950 at 78. Her last years were lonely and idle; she was dependent on drugs. Her closest friend remained Chanel, who desperately wanted to take over her crown, her legend. There was nothing to inherit. As Cocteau said of Misia: "Angels fly because they take themselves lightly." -Martha Duffy
...volumes of Beaton's diaries preceded this abridged collection, but in this case less truly is more. The dull passages have been excised, and only the best remain, glittering stories about glittering people. Cocteau and Colette, Coward and Capote, Garbo and De Gaulle. Advising the young Beaton about clothes, Noel Coward, for instance, sounds like one of his own characters. "One would like to indulge one's own taste," he says. "[But] I take ruthless stock of myself in the mirror before going out. A polo jumper or unfortunate tie exposes one to danger...