French actor, who made his mark primarily in the theatre. His performance in Marcel Carné's Les Enfants du paradis (1943-45) alone ensured his place in film history. Barrault studied acting and mime. He met Madeleine Renaud in 1936 and married her in 1940; they founded a long-lived stage company. Barrault's thin physique, feverish look and theatrical performance style destined him for romantic parts such as Berlioz in La Symphonie fantastique (1942) and the poet in Max Ophüls' La Ronde (1950). He also played mannered cynics—the killers of Drôle de drame and Le Puritain (both 1937)—and the dual hero of Jean Renoir's Le Testament du Dr. Cordelier (1961). His triumph was Baptiste in Les Enfants du paradis, based on the mime Debureau, a character he suggested to Carné and Jacques Prévert, thus also reviving popular interest in pantomime. His last important part was in Ettore Scola's La Nuit de Varennes (1982).