Born as Franz Wiener, he was educated in
Brussels on 28 January 1877 into a prominent Jewish-Belgian family that was distinguished in diplomacy and the army.[1] His parents were Alexandre Jacques Wiener and Eugenie Bertha (
née Straus) Wiener. After moving to France, where he spent most of his life, he had his name changed by Presidential decree.[1]
At age 17, he rebelled against his parents' wishes that he take up a military career, and ran away to Paris. In 1901, his play Chérubin was produced at the
Comédie-Française where
Cécile Sorel (later the Comtesse de Ségur) made her debut in it.
Jules Massenet set Chérubin to music and, in 1905,
Mary Garden sang its première at the
Opéra de Monte-Carlo.[1]
He was a lawyer by profession, but de Croisset gradually devoted more and more time to the theatre, "until play writing became his vocation."[1]
His opera librettos include
Massenet's Chérubin (1905), based on his play of the same name, and
Reynaldo Hahn's Ciboulette (1923).[2]
In 1919, de Croisset went to the United States to study film for the French government. By 1927, his name was attached to more than fifty plays. In 1925, he collaborated with
Somerset Maugham on Dr. Miracle, which was produced in New York City.[1] Additional plays were produced in New York, including Pierre or Jack?.[3]
Military service
Notwithstanding his aversion to a career in the military, upon the outbreak of
World War I, he enlisted in the
French Army as a private, serving for four years before mustering out as a
Lieutenant. He was twice decorated for his gallantry, including being awarded the
Croix de Guerre for his valor.[1]
Personal life
In 1909, he was engaged to Mlle. Isola, the daughter of one of the directors of the
Théâtre de la Gaîté. The engagement was broken off and, instead, he married wealthy widow Marie-Thérèse Bischoffsheim, in 1910. A daughter of Count and Countess Adhéaume de Chevigné, she was a descendant of the
Marquis de Sade and her grandmother Laure de Sade was, in part, the inspiration for the character of the Duchess of Guermantes in
Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past).[4] From her first marriage to banking heir
Maurice Bischoffsheim, she had a daughter, the arts patron
Marie-Laure de Noailles (later the Vicomtesse de Noailles from her 1923 marriage to
Charles, Vicomte de Noailles). Together, Marie-Thérèse and Francis were the parents of two children:
Philippe de Croisset (1912–1965),[5] who married Ethel Woodward, a daughter of American banker
William Woodward, in 1941.[6] After having two sons,[7][8] they divorced and Philippe married Jacqueline de la Chaume. After his death in 1965, she became the third wife of actor
Yul Brynner.[9]
Germaine de Croisset (1913–1975), who married Marquis André Roger Lannes de Montebello (1908–1986), in 1933.
Through his son Philippe, he was a grandfather of two boys. One of which is
Charles de Croisset, a French banker.[7][8] Though his daughter Germaine, he was a grandfather of four boys, including Georges de Montebello (1934–1996), an investment banker and president of the
Swiss Helvetia Fund, and
Philippe de Montebello (b. 1936), the
Director of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City from 1977 until 2008.[10]