[2][3] A native of Cherbourg, France, Marais was a son of Alfred Emmanuel Victor Paul Villain-Marais, a veterinarian, and his wife, the former Aline Marie Louise Vassord.

Marais impressed Cocteau, who cast the actor in his play Les Chevaliers de la table ronde.

He performed briefly with the Comédie-Française, then left acting for a time for fight in Alsace with the Free French Forces, winning the Croix de Guerre.

[6] Marais' first film as leading man was L'Éternel retour (1943), a re-telling of Tristan and Isolde set in 1940s France, written by Jean Cocteau.

He did To the Eyes of Memory (1948) with Michele Morgan for director Jean Delannoy, a big commercial success, then Les Parents Terribles (1949) for Cocteau again.

Marais was in L'appel du destin (1953) for Georges Lacombe; The Lovers of Midnight (1953) for Roger Richebé; Voice of Silence (1953), an Italian film from G. W. Pabst; Inside a Girls' Dormitory (1953); Julietta (1953) for Marc Allegret with Dany Robin and Jeanne Moreau; the all-star Boum sur Paris (1953); and The Faith Healer (1954).

[8] He then made some all-star Guitry films, Royal Affairs in Versailles (1954), Napoleon (1955) (playing Charles Tristan, marquis de Montholon) and If Paris Were Told to Us (1956); School for Love (1955) for Allegret, with a young Brigitte Bardot, a box office flop; Kiss of Fire (1956) for Robert Darène; and The Whole Town Accuses (1956).

Noronha (1957); White Nights (1957) for Luchino Visconti, with Maria Schell and Marcello Mastroianni; Girl in His Pocket (1958); King on Horseback (1958); Every Day Has Its Secret (1958); and the all-star Life Together (1958).

Marais starred in the swashbuckler Le Bossu (1959), appearing alongside Bourvil and directed by André Hunebelle which was a mammoth hit launched a new stage of his career.

The success of the James Bond films saw Marais cast in an espionage movie, The Reluctant Spy (1963) for director Jean-Charles Dudrumet.

He did a comedy, Friend of the Family (1964), then had a huge box office success with Fantomas (1964), playing the villain and hero, under the direction of Hunebelle.

He played Simon Templar in The Saint Lies in Wait (1966) for Christian-Jaque, and a French general in Seven Guys and a Gal (1967), directed by Bernard Borderie.

His film credits included La provocation (1970); Donkey Skin (1970) with Catherine Deneuve, directed by Jacques Demy; and Robert Macaire (1971) for French TV.

He was in the miniseries Karatekas and co (1973) and Joseph Balsamo (1973), and did the TV movies Vaincre à Olympie (1977) and Les Parents terribles (1980), based on the play by Cocteau.

This adopted son, who became a singer and an actor, committed suicide in 2012 at age 69 after an inheritance litigation and bouts of loneliness and depression.