[2][3] Marie Joseph Henri Jean de Baroncelli was born in Paris a few months before the outbreak of the First World War.
His father was the pioneering film director, Jacques de Baroncelli and the family was based in southern France.
During the 1940s he had several novels published including the wartime novel "Vingt-six hommes" (1942 - "Twenty-six men"),[4][5] and "Le disgracié" (1946)[6] He married the theatre star Sophie Desmarets in October 1950 and the couple moved into an old farm that he had inherited on the northwestern side of Montpellier where for several years during the summers they followed a celebrity life-style, with frequent parties.
[1] From 1953 till 1983 he contributed regularly to Le Monde, supplying numerous film reviews along with interviews and investigative pieces.
He was an early contributor to Libération, originally a resistance newspaper, and was a founding member of Association française des cinémas d'art et d'essai (Confederation of Arts Cinemas).