His father, Lazare Kessel, actor at the "Comédie-Française", killed himself at the time of Maurice's birth. He learned this when he was eighteen, having been told before that his father had died from the Spanish flu.
His mother married René Druon from whom he took the name in 1925.
He was cultural minister in France in 1973-1974.
He wrote many novels, plays, and essays.
He and his uncle, Joseph Kessel, adapted a Russian song which became known as the "Chant des Partisans" ("Song of the Partisans"), an anthem of the French Resistance during WWII.
He was elected to the Academie Francaise in 1966, its youngest member at the time.