Louis Jourdan, RIP

[dirac]

I've been meaning to get around to posting this news. He died last February, a passing which didn't get the attention it deserved. Always a favorite of mine. A good actor and of course scrumptiously handsome - so easy to understand why Joan Fontaine pined for him and a desperate Suzy Parker was driven to go through his garbage. His wife died last year. They met while working together for the Resistance and had been married for over six decades. RIP.

But despite his 15 years as a leading man, Jourdan felt he was often subject to Hollywood typecasting.

"Any actor who comes here with an accent is automatically put in roles as a lover," the Associated Press news agency reported him as once saying. "I didn't want to be perpetually cooing in a lady's ear."

The New York Times

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.

The Telegraph

Jourdan's charm was lost on Elizabeth Taylor, however. In the 1963 movie The VIPs, he was an ageing playboy having an affair with Taylor but the actress, then in the midst of her stormy first relationship with Richard Burton, was upset by a story that Jourdan's wife, Quique, had written about her for Paris Match magazine. Taylor reportedly insisted that Jourdan apologise in front of the cast and crew but he refused.

[miliosr]

Thanks for posting this. I hadn't heard this news.

He was a featured player in the classic "three girls in the city" melodrama, The Best of Everything (w/ Joan Crawford). Later in life, he appeared in one of my favorite B-movies, Swamp Thing (w/ Adrienne Barbeau). But his calling card will forever be Gigi.

[Drew]

... his calling card will forever be Gigi.

Yes...

[dirac]

Lesley Gore died on or around the same day and I had the impression her death got more attention. True, he'll always be best known for Gigi but I think among buffs he'll be remembered at least as well for Letter from an Unknown Woman. It's not a favorite of mine, but it is very highly regarded. Jourdan is very fine in it, an overlooked performance in some respects.

He worked briefly again for Alan Jay Lerner when he was initially cast for On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. His pipes proved inadequate and he was replaced with John Cullum. In the movie version the role was played by Yves Montand, disastrously. They might have done better to go back to Jourdan.