Born: 28 January 1873, France
Died: 3 August 1954
Country most active: France
Also known as: Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette
Writer, performer and journalist Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette is best known for her 1944 novella Gigi. Her first four novels, the popular and semi-autobiographical Claudine stories: Claudine à l’école (1900), Claudine à Paris (1901), Claudine en ménage (1902), and Claudine s’en va (1903) – were originally published under her husband’s pen name. A controlling man 14 years her senior, he was known to lock her in a room until she produced more work, and they separated in 1906. Because her husband held the copyright, Colette received no money from her bestselling books. She was able to support herself – barely – with a life on stage, scraping by and later publishing the semi-autobiographical novel La Vagabonde in 1910.
During this time, she also had relationships with other women, including poet, playwright and novelist Natalie Clifford Barney and Mathilde de Morny, the Marquise de Belbeuf (who dressed in men’s attire and went by Max). An onstage kiss between the two on 3 January 1907 nearly caused a riot.
In 1912, Colette married Henry de Jouvenel, the editor of Le Matin, and had a daughter in 1913. During World War I, Colette delved into journalism and photography.
She later published Chéri (1920) and Le Blé en Herbe (1923), both love stories between an older woman and a much younger man.
Colette and Jouvenel divorced in 1924, due a combination of his infidelities and her affair with her 16-year-old stepson. In 1925 she met Maurice Goudeket; the couple married and stayed together until her death.
The 1920s and 1930s were her most productive and innovative period, writing about married life and sexuality. La Naissance du Jour (1928) explicitly criticises the conventional lives of women. By this time Colette was commonly considered France’s greatest woman writer.
Colette was 67 when the Germans invaded and occupied France, and she remained in Paris, in her apartment in the Palais Royal. Her husband, who was Jewish, was arrested by the Gestapo in December 1941, and although he was released in 1942, Colette lived through the rest of the war years with the anxiety of a possible second arrest. During this time, she produced two volumes of memoirs, Journal à Rebours (1941) and De ma Fenêtre (1942). She wrote articles for several pro-Nazi newspapers and her novel Julie de Carneilhan (1941) contains many anti-Semitic slurs,
In 1944, Colette published what became perhaps her most famous work, Gigi, which tells the story of 16-year-old Gigi, who is trained as a courtesan to captivate a wealthy lover but defies the tradition by marrying him instead. In 1949 it was made into a French film, then adapted for the stage in 1951 with the then-unknown Audrey Hepburn – picked by Colette personally – in the title role. The 1958 Hollywood musical movie won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
In the postwar years, Colette was a famous public figure, crippled by arthritis and cared for by Goudeket, who supervised the preparation of her Oeuvres Complètes (1948 – 1950). She continued to write, publishing L’Etoile Vesper (1944) and Le Fanal Bleu (1949), in which she contemplated the problems of a writer whose inspiration is primarily autobiographical.
When she died in 1954 she was refused a religious funeral by the Catholic Church due to her divorces, but was given a state funeral, the first French woman of letters to be granted the honour, and interred in Père-Lachaise cemetery.
The following is republished from the Library of Congress. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873-1954) simply known as Colette, was the talented and prolific chronicler of the female experience in the first half of the twentieth century. During her first marriage, to Henri Gauthier-Villars (“Willy”) a man 15 years her senior, she was exploited for her literary talents. Her wildly popular Claudine novels were largely written while locked in a room — purportedly in order to help her concentrate. Though very obviously autobiographical, her husband passed her works off as his own. When she was finally able to divorce him in 1910 he kept all royalties and she was required to work in a music hall to make ends meet. Fortunately her best work was still to come. She became close with the wealthy Marquise de Balbeuf (Mathilde de Morny) and the two caused a scandal when they performed together on state in “Rêve d’Espagne.” Colette also had a relationship with the famous Natalie Clifford Barney. In 1912 she married Henry de Jouvenel. She contributed her written work to the paper Le Matin (where her husband was editor in chief) and the two had a daughter together. In 1920 she published Chéri which traces the love affair of a young man with an older woman. In some ways this novel mirrors the affair she had with her stepson, Bertrand de Jouvenel, who was 16 at the time of their relationship.
Her later years married to her final husband Maurice Goudeket were marked by her literary productivity. Colette was widely revered as perhaps the best female writer in France at the time. During the German occupation of Paris her husband — who was Jewish — was arrested and released after several weeks. The fear of another arrested haunted her throughout the war, however she was able to write her memoirs ( Journal à rebours and From my window ). Colette lived a long and full life. She was made a member of the Belgian Royal Academy in 1935 and ten years later she was elected to the Académie Goncourt . She was awarded the Legion of Honor ( knight in 1920 and grand officer in 1953) and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.
Her works in the postwar years (L’Étoile Vesper in 1947 and Le Fanal Bleu in 1949) addressed the problems of writing fiction that was based solely off personal experience, something of a tradition among French writers who lived colorful lives. Most of her novels had themes centered on sex, marriage, women’s confined role in society, and in particular, relationships between young men and older women. She has a sizable body of work including her Claudine series (1900-1903) about the coming of age of an adolescent girl, Les Vrilles de la vigne ( Tendrals of Vines , 1908), La Vagabonde (1910), Chéri (1920), These Plaisirs ( Those Pleasures , 1932), La Chatte ( The Cat , 1933), Duo (1934), Gigi (1944). Film adaptations of her written work are too numerous to list, though Claudine , Gigi and Chéri are the most well known. Gigi was made into a French film and later a musical in Hollywood. On stage Gigi was immortalized by the renowned actress Audrey Hepburn who Colette personally selected to play the role. Adaptations of her personal life include “Becoming Colette” staring French actress Mathilda May in 1991, and more recently “Colette” with British actress Keira Knightley in 2018. Her husband Maurice Goudeket wrote about his warm relationship with Colette in his memoirs Très de Colette ( Close to Colette) in 1955. While denied a Catholic funeral, she was given a state funeral with full honors as the first French woman of letters to be interred in Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris (image left). She was admired by writers such as André Gide and Truman Capote and she continues to inspire artists and writers today for her unflinching depictions of women’s intimate lives.