Colette (1) (1873–1954)

Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, popularly known by her last name, was born in a small village in the Burgundy region of eastern France to Captain Jules-Joseph Colette and his wife Sidonie Landoy. At age 20, she married Henry Gauthier-Villars, 15 years her senior, a writer and music critic who went by the pen name of "Willy." He encouraged Colette to write her childhood memoirs, which were published under his name between 1900 and 1903 as four novels called the Claudine series.: After Willy left her in 1906, she earned a living by performing in Parisian music hall shows. Colette then began a career as a journalist, and in the offices of the daily newspaper Le Matin, she met the editor, Henry de Jouvenel, a writer and politician; they married in 1912 and had a daughter. By 1927, she was frequently being called France's greatest woman writer. Colette married as her third husband Maurice Goudeket, who was 17 years her junior and Jewish. In 1945, she was elected the first woman member of the Académie Goncourt, and would serve as its president. At her death, she was given a state funeral.