Trivia

Uncle of Marie-Christine Barrault, uncle-in-law of Roger Vadim.

Barrault was named director of the Theatre de France on Paris' Left Bank in 1959. In 1968 it was announced that he had been dismissed. The coup de grâce was administered in a stern letter from old friend, André Malraux, France's Minister of Culture, who had initially asked Barrault to preside as its director. The cause of Barrault's dismissal was his role in the student riots there. During the demonstrations, anarchist rebels from the Sorbonne "liberated" the Odéon Theatre and turned it into a discussion hall. They also destroyed 50% of the sets, ripped up red velvet seats and urinated on costumes. Barrault wept when he saw the damage, but government officials believed that he tacitly allowed the rebels to take over. Barrault also took to the stage to proclaim his sympathy with student goals and to denounce France's "bourgeois culture." His removal set off a chorus of protests by French stage figures and critics.

Almost a decade before his famous performance in Children of Paradise, Barrault appeared at a gala in Paris in 1937, on behalf of the French Cinematheque, in which he played mime on stage in conjunction with the screening of a clip from the Silent film, The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari.

In 1957, received a Special Tony Award for the French Repertory.