Louis Robert Gendre
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Louis Jourdan, born Louis Robert Gendre in Marseille in 1921, starred in Gigi 1958 and played the James Bond villain in Octopussy 1983. During World War II, he joined the French Resistance after his father was arrested by the Gestapo. Jourdan died at 93 in Beverly Hills in 2015. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the French Legion of Honour.
Names, aliases, and relatives of Louis Jourdan — birth name, kin, and personal ties.
Louis Jourdan by the numbers — life, work, and family.
Louis Jourdan — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
Louis Jourdan perfected his English by speaking to tourists at the Cannes Grand Hôtel, where his father was owner and manager. Born in Marseille on June 19, 1921, he grew up in the south of France with two brothers, Pierre and Robert, both future film directors. He attended the Institut Stanislas in Cannes alongside future actor Gerard Philipe, then trained at the Cours Simon under René Simon.
Jourdan debuted on screen in 1939, playing leads in French romantic comedies and dramas. During World War II, he refused to act in Nazi propaganda films after the Gestapo arrested his father; his film career stalled. In 1947, David O. Selznick brought him to Hollywood for The Paradine Case. In Gigi 1958, he played Gaston Lacaille. He made TV appearances on Columbo as Paul Gerard and on Charlie’s Angels. In 1983, he played the villain Kamal Khan in the James Bond film Octopussy.
Jourdan married Berthe Frederique Takar, called Quique, on March 11, 1946; they met during the German Occupation. Their only child, Louis Henry George Jourdan, was born on October 6, 1951. He died in 1981 at age 29 from an apparent drug overdose; the police labeled it suicide. Jourdan found his son’s body in their Beverly Hills home. In the early 1940s, he was engaged to actress Micheline Presle. Jourdan loved classical music and read Baudelaire and Proust. He was skilled at croquet.
The National Film Registry selected Jourdan’s performances in Letter from an Unknown Woman 1948 and Gigi 1958. In 2010, the French government awarded him the Knight of the Legion of Honour, presented by the French Ambassador in Los Angeles. He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He holds the record as the longest-lived James Bond main villain, dying at 93. His screen presence in Octopussy remains a defining villain role.
Every award, honor, and recognition received by Louis Jourdan — Grammys, hall-of-fame inductions, civic honors, lifetime achievements.
A wall of memorable lines from Louis Jourdan — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.
There Are Actors in This Town Who Made Important Careers for a Long, Long Period Just by Taking the Parts That Cary Grant Turned Down.
I Never See My Movies. When They’re on Television I Click Them Away. Hollywood Created an Image and I Long Ago Reconciled Myself with It. I Was the French Cliché.
I Would Rather Be Called a Character Actor Than a Star.
When One Has Been Married Over Thirty Years, of Course It Would Be Absurd Not to Admit There Have Been Some Difficulties, at Some Times. but the Important Thing Is That We Have Weathered Them.
I’m Proud to Be a Frenchman, but I Resent the Image People Have of the Stupid, Continental Charmer. Against That Type of Role I Fight Pitilessly.
Any Actor Who Comes Here with an Accent Is Automatically Put in Roles as a Lover. I Didn’t Want to Be Perpetually Cooing in a Lady’s Ear.
Acting Is a Very Nice Life and It’s a Life That Has Been Good to Me, but There Is One Drawback. Unlike the Shoemaker Who Makes the Shoes and Puts Them in a Window for Sale and Then Retires to His Private Life, an Actor Is Himself the Product He Is Trying to Sell.
My Special Urge Has Always Been to Play Villains and I Have Had a Few Opportunities That I Enjoyed a Great Deal.
We Are All Aging, and We Have to Be Very Aware That We Are Aging. as an Actor, the Characters You Play Are Going to Be Aging Also.
Some Frenchmen Would Have You Think That All Americans Are Rich, Raucous, Overdressed, Cigar Smoking Texans. Naturally, of Course, This Isn’t True – Especially in Texas.
I Would Rather Be Called a Character Actor Than a Star. to Make Differences Between the Leading Man and Character Actors Infers That the Leading Man Has No Character. If Producers Offered Me Smaller but Better Acting Parts, I Would Take Them.
If I Was Not a Great Success in American Films, Neither Was I a Failure. I’ve Been Working for Years Without Setting the World on Fire, but Managing to Keep My Wife in Caviar and Champagne.
There’s No Greater Discipline for an Actor Than to Have to Convince an Audience About a Product in 20 or 30 Seconds. I Don’t Look Down on Commercials, I Look up Commercials. and I Have Fun. That’s the Secret, to Have Fun Doing What You’re Doing.
My Basic Disagreement with Producers Was That I Didn’t Want to Be Perpetually Cooing in a Lady’s Ear.
Little-known facts about Louis Jourdan — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
During the French Resistance, he helped publish and distribute newspapers for the Underground.
His father managed the Cannes Grand Hôtel during WW2.
In 2010, Jourdan received the French Legion of Honor, presented by the French Ambassador to the U.S. in Los Angeles.
He holds the record as the longest-lived James Bond main villain, at 93 years and 240 days.
Jourdan’s wife, Berthe, went by the nickname Quique; they met during the German Occupation. Their only child, a son, Louis Henry George Jourdan, was born October 6, 1951 and died in 1981, aged 29. Louis Jourdan found his son’s body in his Beverly Hills home; the police labeled it a suicide.
He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
He grew up in the south of France with two brothers. His parents, Yvonne Jourdan and Henry Gendre, managed a string of hotels in Cannes, Nice, and Marseille. He perfected his English by speaking to tourists.
He appeared in two adaptations of Alexandre Dumas’s 1844 novel The Count of Monte Cristo. He played Edmond Dantès in The Story of the Count of Monte Cristo 1961 and his enemy Villefort in The Count of Monte-Cristo 1975.
He played the Maurice Chevalier role in Gigi on stage at the age of 63. Chevalier was 70 and frail when he did the movie Gigi 1958.
He loved classical music and listened to it to relax after performances and before sleeping.
He appeared in two films selected for the National Film Registry: Letter from an Unknown Woman 1948 and Gigi 1958.
Darryl F. Zanuck considered him the best player in his croquet circle.
He liked to play his own version of name that tune with friends, using classical music. Taki Theodoracopulos recalls: we had tapes or records, and a stopwatch. The quicker one answered, the more points one got.
He read tirelessly; one of his favourite books was Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin.
In 1988, he recorded an abridged audiobook of The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas.
In the early 1940s, he was engaged to Micheline Presle; they met in St. Tropez in 1938. After the breakup, Jourdan refused to speak to her off-camera during the film Twilight 1944.
He recorded Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince and several of Jean de Brunhoff’s Babar books for Caedmon Audio.
He and his family attended Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Santa Monica. Louis Jr. had his First Communion there.
He loved the poetry of Charles Baudelaire and recorded a French-language reading of his poems for Caedmon Audio.
He read Molière, Proust, Feydeau, Shakespeare, Ruskin, Montherlant, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer.
Jourdan and French actor Gerard Philipe attended the Institut Stanislas, a private Catholic school in Cannes.
He received a 1975 Joseph Jefferson Award nomination for Best Guest Artist for his role in the play 13 Rue De L’Amour at the Arlington Park Theatre in Chicago.
Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about Louis Jourdan.
Celebrities similar to Louis Jourdan — same craft, ranked by reach.
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