Louis Jourdan
Louis Jourdan ( born June 19, 1921 in Marseille, real name Louis Gendre ) is a French actor.
Life
Louis Jourdan grew up in France, Turkey and England and was educated at the École dramatique in Paris for the actor. Making his first appearance as a film actor he had in 1939 During the Second World War, he turned continued to make films until he was invited to participate in propaganda films of the Nazis.; he rejected the offer and joined the Résistance. After the liberation of France in 1944, he married Berthe Frédérique, with whom he had a son who died in 1981 but not closer -called drug from a drug overdose.
In 1947 he accepted an offer from Hollywood to play in The Paradine Case of Alfred Hitchcock alongside Gregory Peck. In the following period was attempted Louis Jourdan as the successor of Charles Boyer build a Continental Lover. The following films usually showed the actor in romantic roles, as in the adaptation of Madame Bovary with Jennifer Jones and in the film adaptation of Stefan Zweig Letter from an Unknown directed by Max Ophüls on the side of Joan Fontaine. 1954, dissatisfied with the constant repetition of the same pattern role, he went to New York to Broadway, where he played the lead role in Billy Roses drama The Immoralist.
In the 1950s, Louis Jourdan entered into several international productions: he played alongside Brigitte Bardot the male lead in La Mariée est trop belle, but remained primarily remembered for his role in the 1958 film adaptation of Colette's novel Gigi alongside Leslie Caron and Maurice Chevalier. The film won nine Oscars, including the Best Film. In 1961 he played the title role in the Dumas classic The Count of Monte Cristo. In later years he played rather the type of villains, so in 1974 as Villefort in the remake of The Count of Monte Cristo starring Richard Chamberlain and Tony Curtis in 1977 in Count Dracula and 1983 in the James Bond film Octopussy as an opponent of Roger Moore.
Louis Jourdan has two stars - one for television and one for sound recordings - on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6153 Hollywood Boulevard and 6445. He now lives retired in southern France.