Jean-Dominique Bauby was a French journalist, author and editor of the French fashion magazineElle. He had two children with Sylvie de la Rochefoucauld, a son named Théophile and a daughter named Céleste.
Early life and career
Bauby was born in the 14th arrondissement of Paris. He began his journalism career at Combat and then Le Quotidien de Paris. He received his first byline the day Georges Pompidou died in 1974. At age 28, he was promoted to editor-in-chief of the daily Le Matin de Paris, before becoming editor of the cultural section of Paris Match. He then joined the editorial staff of Elle.
Memoir
On 8 December 1995, at the age of 43, Bauby suffered a major stroke. When he woke up in hospital twenty days later, he found he was entirely speechless; he could only blink his left eyelid. Called locked-in syndrome, this is a condition wherein the mental faculties remain intact but most of the body is paralyzed. In Bauby's case, his mouth, arms, and legs were paralyzed, and he lost in the first 20 weeks after his stroke. Despite his condition, he wrote the book The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by blinking when the correct letter was reached by a person slowly reciting the alphabet over and over again using a system called partner-assisted scanning. Bauby composed and edited the book entirely in his head, and dictated it one letter at a time. To make dictation more efficient, Bauby's amanuensis, Claude Mendibil, listed the letters in accordance with their frequency in the French language. The book was published in France on 7 March 1997. Bauby died suddenly from pneumonia, aged 44, two days after the publication of his book, and he is buried in a family grave at the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris, France.
Legacy
Films
directed a short documentary film entitled Assigné à résidence about Bauby's time at Berck-sur-Mer, which was released in 1997. The film features Bauby himself, as well as appearances by his interlocutor, Claude Mandibil, and his partner, Florence Ben Sadoun. In 2007, painter-director Julian Schnabel released a film version of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly adapted for the screen by Ronald Harwood. It starred actor Mathieu Amalric as Bauby. Critically acclaimed, the film received many awards and nominations including the Best Director Prize at Cannes Film Festival and the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film & Best Director, as well as 4 Academy Award nominations. The script written for the film has been criticized by Bauby's closest circle of friends as not faithful to events and biased in favor of his ex-partner. His late-life partner Florence Ben Sadoun claims to have been a faithful companion, visiting him frequently at Berck-sur-Mer, the hospital where he lived during his final days. Bauby notes her visits in his memoir. Sylvie de la Rochefoucauld also claims to have visited him frequently at the hospital.
