Louis Jourdan obit

Louis Jourdan, Suave Star in Europe and Hollywood, Dies at 93

He was not on the list. 

Louis Jourdan, a handsome, sad-eyed French actor who worked in films and on television in Europe and the United States for more than 50 years, as a romantic hero in movies like “Gigi” and later as a suave villain in movies like “Octopussy,” died on Friday at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 93.

His official biographer, Olivier Minne, announced the death.

Mr. Jourdan (his name was pronounced Lew-EE zhor-DON) had a reserved, quiet manner that lent his performances an aura of mystery and even of melancholy and that served him well in both sympathetic and unsympathetic roles.

His durability was remarkable, considering that his European screen career as well as his American one began inauspiciously.

Born Louis Henri Gendre in Marseilles on June 19, 1921, Mr. Jourdan attended acting school in Paris and was tapped for a role in the film “Le Corsaire,” directed by Marc Allégret. But the outbreak of World War II interrupted the production, and the movie was never completed.

He appeared in several films during the Occupation, often directed by Mr. Allégret, for whom he also sometimes worked as an assistant director. After his father, a hotelier, was arrested by the Gestapo, Mr. Jourdan joined the Resistance.

After the war he went to the United States and attracted the attention of the producer David O. Selznick, who cast him in the courtroom drama “The Paradine Case” (1947), very much against the wishes of the director, Alfred Hitchcock.

Mr. Jourdan’s character, a slightly sinister valet suspected of murdering his employer, was originally conceived as a rough, earthy type, which Mr. Jourdan was clearly not. Mr. Hitchcock referred to him as “a pretty-pretty boy” and complained that his casting “destroyed the whole point of the film.” (There appeared to be no lingering antagonism: Mr. Jourdan was among the mourners at Mr. Hitchcock’s funeral in 1980.)






Mr. Jourdan was more fortunate in his next Hollywood assignment, playing a concert pianist who seduces and abandons Joan Fontaine in Max Ophuls’s elegant romantic tragedy “Letter From an Unknown Woman” (1948). It was a role that allowed him to use his silky, hooded charm to memorably ambiguous effect, and to create, for one of the few times in his long career, a truly complex character — a hollow man who comes, in the end, to understand how much his hollowness has cost him.

The next year he won the important role of Rodolphe, the heroine’s lover, in Vincente Minnelli’s film version of “Madame Bovary.” For the next decade he appeared in many high-profile, big-budget studio pictures, usually performing the somewhat limited function of embodying Hollywood’s idea of the dashing, cultured, worldly European man.

His greatest success in this mode came when he starred opposite Leslie Caron in Mr. Minnelli’s musical “Gigi” (1958), a major hit that won nine Academy Awards, including best picture. (Mr. Jourdan was not nominated, for this or for any other movie in his career; “Gigi” did, however, earn him a Golden Globe for best actor in a comedy or musical.)

Between Hollywood jobs, Mr. Jourdan would occasionally return to Europe to make films, among them Jacques Becker’s “Rue de l’Estrapade” (1953). And in 1954 he took a shot at Broadway, playing the lead in a stage adaptation of André Gide’s novel “The Immoralist.” Although he received good reviews, his performance was partly eclipsed by that of a striking young actor in the supporting cast: James Dean.

After the 1950s, the Continental types that had been Mr. Jourdan’s bread and butter fell out of favor in American movies. For the last 30 years of his performing life Mr. Jourdan — still attractive and still impeccably dignified, but looking a bit more world-weary with every passing year — was cast more often as a Prince of Darkness than as Prince Charming. He played the oily Dr. Anton Arcane in Wes Craven’s “Swamp Thing” (1982) and its 1989 sequel, “The Return of Swamp Thing,” and the evil Kamal Khan, from whom James Bond is obliged to save the world, in “Octopussy” (1983).

Mr. Jourdan had the opportunity to play more nuanced villains on television. He was a guest murderer on “Columbo” in 1978, a year after he gave a seductive and chilling performance in the title role of “Count Dracula” on the BBC.

He was named as a chevalier, or knight, of the French Legion of Honor in 2010.

Mr. Jourdan was, by all accounts, well liked in Hollywood, but he kept his private life private. In 1946 he married Berthe Frederique; they remained married until her death last year. The couple had one child, Louis Henry Jourdan Jr., who died of a drug overdose in 1981, at 29. A brother, Pierre Jourdan, who was an actor and a theater director in France, died in 2007.

Louis Jourdan made his last appearance on screen in 1992, in the caper film “Year of the Comet.” He played the bad guy.



Filmography

Year Film/TV Role Notes

1939 Le Corsaire (The Pirate) Film never completed

1940 La Comédie du bonheur Fédor (Italy: Ecco la felicità) (England Comedy of Happiness)

1941 Her First Affair Pierre Rougemont (France: Premier rendez-vous)

Parade en sept nuits Freddy Richard, le clown

1942 L'Arlésienne Frédéri

The Beautiful Adventure André d'Éguzon

1943 The Heart of a Nation Christian Uncredited

1944 Les Petites du quai aux fleurs Francis

Félicie Nanteuil (US: Twilight) Robert de Ligny

1945 La Vie de Boheme Rodolphe / Rodolfo

1947 The Paradine Case André Latour, Paradine's Valet

1948 Letter from an Unknown Woman Stefan Brand

No Minor Vices Octavio Quaglini

1949 Madame Bovary Rodolphe Boulanger

1951 Bird of Paradise André Laurence

Anne of the Indies Captain Pierre François La Rochelle

1952 The Happy Time Uncle Desmond Bonnard

1953 Paris Precinct Insp. Beaumont TV (15 episodes, 1953–1955)

Decameron Nights Giovanni Boccaccio / Paganino / Giulio / Don Bertando

Rue de l'Estrapade Henri Laurent

1954 Three Coins in the Fountain Prince Dino di Cessi

1956 The Swan Dr. Nicholas Agi

Julie Lyle Benton

The Bride Is Much Too Beautiful Michel

1957 Love in the Afternoon Narrator Uncredited

Escapade Frank Raphaël

Dangerous Exile Duke Philippe de Beauvais

1958 Gigi Gaston Lachaille Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy

2nd Place – Golden Laurel Award for Top Male Musical Performance

1959 The Best of Everything David Savage

1960 Can-Can Philipe Forrestier

1961 Le Vergini di Roma Drusco

The Count of Monte Cristo Edmond Dantes

1962 Disorder Tom

Leviathan [fr] Paul

1963 Mathias Sandorf Le comte Mathias Sandorf

Irma la Douce Narrator Uncredited

The V.I.P.s Marc Champselle

1966 Made in Paris Marc Fontaine

Les Sultans Laurent

1967 To Commit a Murder Charles Beaulieu aka Peau d'espion

Cervantes Cardinal Acquaviva

1968 To Die in Paris Colonel Bertine Westrex TV

A Flea in Her Ear Henri Tournel

1969 Fear No Evil David Sorell TV

Run a Crooked Mile Richard Stuart TV

1970 Ritual of Evil David Sorell TV

1973 The Great American Beauty Contest Ralph Dupree TV

1975 Piange Il Telefono Alberto Landi

1975 The Count of Monte Cristo De Villefort TV

1976 L'hippopotamours Le camionneur

1977 The Man in the Iron Mask D'Artagnan TV

Silver Bears Prince di Siracusa

The More It Goes, the Less It Goes Paul Tango

Count Dracula Count Dracula TV

1978 Columbo Paul Gerard TV episode "Murder Under Glass"

1979 The French Atlantic Affair Captain Charles Girodt TV

1980 Charlie's Angels Dr. Redmond TV episode "Nips and Tucks"

1982 Romance Theatre: Gamble on Love Host TV

Romance Theatre: Bayou Romance Host TV; uncredited

Swamp Thing Dr. Anton Arcane

1983 Octopussy Kamal Khan

Double Deal Peter Sterling

1984 Cover Up George LeMare TV

1984 The First Olympics: Athens, 1896 Pierre de Coubertin TV

1986 Beverly Hills Madam Douglas Corbin TV

Romance Theatre: Escape to Love Host TV

1987 Grand Larceny Charles Grand

1988 Counterforce Kassar

1989 The Return of Swamp Thing Dr. Anton Arcane

1992 Year of the Comet Philippe (final film role)