Q 01/05

In the 1930s Cocteau coaxed a faded former world champion back to the top of which sport?

A) Cycling

B) Boxing

C) Tennis

D) Fencing

Answer · why

B) Boxing

Boxing: he found the Panamanian bantamweight Al Brown performing in a Paris cabaret, got him off drugs and back into training, and saw him win a world...

Q 02/05

Which nickname of the young Cocteau in bohemian Paris was also the title of his second book of poems?

A) The Sleeping Poet

B) The Frivolous Prince

C) The Enfant Terrible

D) The Blue God

Answer · why

B) The Frivolous Prince

The Frivolous Prince was the title of his 1910 collection; within a few years he had turned his back on such salon verse and thrown in his lot with th...

Q 03/05

What did Cocteau do during the First World War?

A) Flew scout planes

B) Painted camouflage

C) Drove an ambulance

D) Commanded infantry

Answer · why

C) Drove an ambulance

Drove an ambulance: turned down by the army on health grounds, he reached the Belgian front with a volunteer medical convoy and later set his novel Th...

Q 04/05

Which impresario persuaded Cocteau to write the scenario for the ballet Parade?

A) Léonide Massine

B) Vaslav Nijinsky

C) Léon Bakst

D) Sergei Diaghilev

Answer · why

D) Sergei Diaghilev

Sergei Diaghilev had earlier brushed off the eager young poet with two words, 'Astonish me', and Cocteau treated the dare as his artistic programme fo...

Q 05/05

Who designed the sets and costumes for Cocteau's ballet Parade in 1917?

A) Pablo Picasso

B) Henri Matisse

C) Georges Braque

D) Amedeo Modigliani

Answer · why

A) Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso joined the company in Rome to prepare the designs and there fell for one of its dancers, Olga Khokhlova, whom he married the following y...