Trivia of Louis Jordan

 Trivia of Louis Jordan (19 June 1921 - 14 February 2015)

*Louis Gendre was born June 19, 1921, in Marseilles, France; when he became an actor he changed to Pierre Jourdan, then Louis Jourdan. His father owned a seaside hotel in Cannes, where he met artists, actors and directors who encouraged him to study drama in Paris.

*He was educated in France, Turkey, and the UK, and studied acting at the École Dramatique. While there, he began acting on the professional stage, where he was brought to the attention of director Marc Allégret, who hired him to work as an assistant camera operator in a French film.Allegret then cast Jourdan in what should have been his first movie, Le Corsaire in 1939 opposite Charles Boyer. Filming was interrupted by the Second World War and was never resumed.

*Jourdan was spotted in a French film by a talent scout working for David O. Selznick, who offered the actor a contract in March 1946.His first American film was The Paradine Case (1947) starring Gregory Peck. The movie is a drama directed by Alfred Hitchcock, who did not want Jourdan cast as the valet in the film.

*When Jourdan was brought to Hollywood in 1947, the producer instructed him to "learn good American English the way it is spoken by John Barrymore and Fredric March." The actor studied hard, but he concluded: "If I had come here as a boy, I could speak unaccented English; at 24, it is impossible."

*He play role as insanely jealous husband in film Julie (1956) opposite Doris Day.Doris Day has written that her close friendship with co-star Louis Jourdan angered her jealous producer husband Martin Melcher, mirroring the character relationships in the film.

*Jourdan's film career reached a peak when be a cast of musical film Gigi (1958) which won nine Academy Awards, including best picture. At first, Jourdan protested that he couldn't sing and wasn't right for the role as the Parisian seeking young Gigi (Leslie Caron) as a mistress.Jourdan didn't consider Gigi his best achievement. He said in 1957: "It was a wonderful story for Leslie and actor Maurice Chevalier, but I played a colorless leading man. You'll note that none of the actors was nominated for Academy Awards."

*He was the last French actor from the Hollywood golden era.Succeeding Charles Boyer as Hollywood's favorite French lover, Jourdan romanced Joan Fontaine, Jennifer Jones, Grace Kelly and Shirley MacLaine in films during the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s.He was subject to the Hollywood habit of typecasting."Any actor who comes here with an accent is automatically put in roles as a lover," he complained. "I didn't want to be perpetually cooing in a lady's ear."