Background
Jourdan, Louis was born on June 19, 1921 in Marseille, France. Came to United States, 1946. Son of Henry Gendre and Yvonne Jourdan. The son of a hotelier, he traveled widely as a boy.
Jourdan, Louis was born on June 19, 1921 in Marseille, France. Came to United States, 1946. Son of Henry Gendre and Yvonne Jourdan. The son of a hotelier, he traveled widely as a boy.
He was trained at the Ecole Dramatique in Paris.
His French films are Le Corsaire (39, Marc Allegret); Premier Rendez-Vous (41, Henri Decoin); L Artésienne (42, Allegret); Fclicie Nanteuil (42, Allegret): La Vie de Bohème (42, Marcel L'Herbier); Untel Père et Fils (43, Julien Duvivier); La Belle Aventure (45, Allegret).
In America, against his director's wishes, he was the valet in The Paradine Case (48, Alfred Hitchcock); the man in Letter from an Unknown Woman (48, Max Ophuls); Rodolphe in Madame Bovary (49, Vincente Minnelli); Bird of Paradise (50, Delmer Daves); Anne of the Indies (51, Jacques Tourneur); The Happy Time (52, Richard Fleischer); back to France for Rue de l’Estrapade (53, Jacques Becker); Decameron Nights (52, Hugo Fregonese); Three Coins in the Fountain (54, Jean Negulesco); to France for The Bride Is Much Too Beautiful (56, Pierre Gaspard-Huit), with Brigitte Bardot; The Swan (56, Charles Vidor); Julie (56, Andrew L. Stone); Gigi (58, Minnelli); Dangerous Exile (58, Brian Desmond Hurst); The Best of Everything (59, Negulesco); Can-Can (60, Walter Lang).
Nothing was quite the same after that, but Jourdan seems never to have announced a retirement: The Count of Monte Cristo (61, Claude Autant- Lara); Disorder (62, Franco Brusati); The VIPs (63, Anthonv Asquith); Made in Paris (66, Boris Sagal); To Commit a Murder (67, Edouard Moli- naro); Young Rebel (67, Vincent Sherman); A Flea in Her Ear (68, Jacques Charon); Silver Bears (77,
Ivan Passer); The Man in the Iron Mask (77, Mike Newell); very funny in Swamp Thing (82, Wes Craven); the villain to Bond in Octopussy (83, John Glen); The Return of the Swamp Thing (89, Jim Wynorsld); Year of the Comet (92, Peter Yates).
Louis Jourdan has been one of the best-looking men on screen. He was, in addition, an intelligent man and a sympathetic actor of real ability. No wonder David Ü. Selznick put him under contract soon after the war, when Jourdan had several French movies to his credit, as well as prolonged, courageous service in the Resistance. He had a long career: he was in one great hit (Gigi) and one indisputably great picture (Letter from an Unknown Woman). Yet it was a career that did not really take, no matter that Jourdan and his wife, Quique, were popular figures in Hollywood society.
Married Berthe Frederique, March 11, 1946. Married Micheline Prealel. 1 son, Louis Henry.