Dutch postcard by Fotoarchief Film en Toneel, no. 3212. Photo: Universal International.
Dashingly handsome French film actor Louis Jourdan (1919-2015) is known for his cultivated, lead roles in several Hollywood films. With his polished good looks he often was typecast as the old-fashioned European lover, but in the 1980’s he could broaden his range with character roles like the eccentric villain opposite James Bond in Octopussy.
Louis Jourdan was born as Louis Gendre in 1919 (some sources say 1920 or 1921), in Marseille, France. His parents, Yvonne Jourdan and Henry Gendre managed a string of hotels in Cannes, Nice, and Marseilles. One of his two brothers was the actor-director Pierre Jourdan. Louis was educated in France, Britain, and Turkey, and in 1938 he received his dramatic training with René Simon at the Écôle Dramatique in Paris. The following year he was discovered by a talent scout and debuted on-screen in Le Corsaire (Marc Allégret, 1939) with Charles Boyer. He went on to play dashing young leads in French romantic comedies and dramas, such as La comédie du bonheur/The Comedy of Happiness (Marcel L’Herbier, 1940) with Michel Simon and Ramon Novarro, and Premier rendez-vous/Her First Affair (Henri Decoin, 1941) starring Danielle Darrieux. Following the German occupation of France during World War II, he continued to make films including L’Arlésienne (Marc Allégret, 1942) with Raimu and Gaby Morlay, and Les petites du quai aux fleurs/The Girls of the Quai aux Fleurs (Marc Allégret, 1944) with Micheline Preseline, with whom he was briefly married. After refusing to participate in Nazi propaganda films, his budding career was cut short. When his hotelier father was arrested by the Gestapo, Jourdan and his brothers joined the French résistance, and helped publish and distribute a newspaper for the Underground. After the 1944 liberation of France by the Allies, Jourdan married for a second time. This time with his childhood sweetheart Berthe Frederique, with whom he later would have a son. Shortly after the liberation, he was seen in leading roles in Félicie Nanteuil (Marc Allégret, 1945) with Micheline Presle and Claude Dauphin, and La Vie de Bohème/La Bohème/The Bohemian Life (Marcel L’Herbier, 1945), with Maria Denis. These films were already shot during the war, but Jourdan was the stand-out and became known as the most handsome French actor of his era.
In 1946, Louis Jourdan accepted an offer from Hollywood producer David O. Selznick to appear in the crime drama The Paradine Case (Alfred Hitchcock, 1947) starring Gregory Peck and Alida Valli. He remained in the USA and went on to star in several Hollywood films, including No Minor Vices (Lewis Milestone, 1948) with Dana Andrews and Lili Palmer, Anne of the Indies (Jacques Tourneur, 1951) with Jean Peters and Debra Paget, comedy The Happy Time (Richard Fleischer, 1952) with Charles Boyer, and Three Coins in the Fountain (Jean Negulesco, 1954) with Clifton Webb and Dorothy McGuire. His Hollywood career was hampered by the limitations of the roles he was offered, most of which featured him as an old-fashioned European lover à la Charles Boyer. While he was memorable as the object of Joan Fontaine's secret longings in Letter from an Unknown Woman (Max Ophüls, 1948), he went on to play similar roles opposite Jennifer Jones in Madame Bovary (Vincente Minnelli, 1949) and Grace Kelly in The Swan (Charles Vidor, 1956). In 1954 he made his Broadway debut in the lead role of Michel in 'The Immoralist'. It was a success. He returned to Broadway for a short run in 1955 and that year was a hit on television as Inspector Beaumont in the series Paris Precinct. He also appeared in European productions, like the Boccaccio adaptation Decameron Nights (Hugo Fregonese, 1953) with Joan Fontaine, Rue de l'Estrapade/Françoise Steps Out (Jacques Becker, 1953) with Daniel Gélin and Anne Vernon, La mariée est trop belle/The Bride is Too Beautiful (Pierre Gaspard-Huit, 1956) opposite Brigitte Bardot, and Escapade (Ralph Habib, 1957) with Dany Carrel. However, he is best remembered for the musical Gigi (Vincente Minnelli, 1958), based on the Colette novel. He played a French playboy in his late 30’s who seduced Leslie Caron the moment she came of legal age, while Maurice Chevalier sang Thank Heaven for Little Girls. The film earned nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture. In 1982, he played the Chevalier role in Gigi on stage, at the age of 63.
During the 1960s and 1970s, he kept travelling between Hollywood and Europe. He starred in films like Le Comte de Monte Cristo/The Count of Monte Cristo (Claude Autant-Lara, 1961) with Yvonne Furneaux, The V.I.P.s (Anthony Asquith, 1963) with Elizabeth Taylor, the TV film Run a Crooked Mile (Gene Levitt, 1969) with Mary Tyler Moore, a TV version of The Count of Monte-Cristo (David Greene, 1975), the BBC production Count Dracula (Mike Newell, 1977), and he was the narrator of the hit comedy Irma la Douce (Billy Wilder, 1963). In 1981 Louis Jourdan found his only son dead in his Beverly Hills home. Louis Henry, 29, had suffered from depression and had taken an overdose of drugs. The police labelled it a suicide, even though it may have been an accidental overdose. The next year Louis Jourdan turned to playing eccentric villains, as Dr. Anton Arcane in the campy Sci-Fi film Swamp Thing (Wes Craven, 1982) and its sequel The Return of Swamp Thing (Jim Wynorski, 1989). In 1983, he was cast as the very charming and sophisticated villain Kamal Khan in the James Bond film, Octopussy (John Glen, 1983) with Roger Moore. In 1984, he played the role of Baron Pierre de Coubertin in the Emmy Award winningTV film The First Olympics: Athens 1896 (Alvin Rakoff, 1984). After shooting Year of the Comet (Peter Yates, 1992) he retired and moved to the south of France. He lived there with his wife for more than sixty years, Berthe Frederique. In 2015, Louis Jourdan died in California, aged 93.
Sources: Ephraim Katz (The Film Encyclopedia), Wikipedia, Chad Rosen (IMDb), Yahoo Movies, Filmreference.com, NNDB, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
