Barrault, Jean-Louis

French actor, stage director, and producer. He was producer and director to the Comédie Française 1940–46, and set up the Compagnie Renaud-Barrault in 1946 with his wife Madeleine Renaud. He appeared in such films as La Symphonie fantastique (1942) and La Ronde (1950), and as the mime Baptiste in Marcel Carné's cinema classic Les Enfants du Paradis (1945).

Barrault became director of the Théâtre de France (formerly Odéon) in 1958, and presented a wide repertory, including a production of Eugène Ionesco's Rhinocéros, playing the lead himself. He was dismissed in 1968 because of statements made during the student unrest of that year, but continued to stage shows and spectacles in Paris and around the world.