Trivia

Part of his French Resistance work was to help publish and distribute newspapers for the Underground.

His father was the manager of the Cannes Grand Hôtel during WW2.

In 2010, Jourdan received the 'French Legion of Honor.' The French Ambassador to the U.S presented the medal in Los Angeles, California.

Longest lived James Bond main villain, at 93 years and 240 days.

He has two stars on the "Hollywood Walk of Fame".

Jourdan's wife, Berthe, was known 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, predeceasing his parents. Louis Jourdan found his son's body in his Beverly Hills home. His son had suffered from depression and had apparently taken an overdose of drugs. The police labeled it a suicide, even though it may have been an accidental overdose.

He grew up in the south of France with 2 brothers. Parents Yvonne Jourdan and Henry Gendre managed a string of hotels in Cannes, Nice, and Marseilles. 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 the title character Edmond Dantès in The Story of the Count of Monte Cristo (1961) and his enemy Villefort in The Count of Monte-Cristo (1975).

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).

Played Edmond Dantes in "The Story of the Count of Monte Cristo" (1961) and later played De Villefort in "The Count of Monte Cristo" (1975).

He appeared in two films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) and Gigi (1958).

At the beginning of the 1940s, he was engaged to Micheline Presle, whom he first met during a holiday in St. Tropez in 1938. They were close to getting married at one point, but eventually broke up in a hard way. Jourdan took this so badly that, when he was reunited with Micheline in Twilight (1944), he refused to speak any word to her except for when they were in front of the camera. Micheline was initially irritated by this, but eventually ended up laughing at the whole thing.

Loved classical music, and relied on it to relax him after performances and before going to sleep.

Considered the best player in Darryl F. Zanuck's famous croquet circle.

In 1988, he recorded an abridged audio book of The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas.

Recorded Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Little Prince, and several of Jean de Brunhoff's Babar books for Caedmon Audio.

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. ".

A tireless reader of many authors and subjects, one of his favourite books was "Sesame and Lilies" by English author John Ruskin.

Loved the poetry of Charles Baudelaire, and did a French language recording of his poems for Caedmon Audio.

He and his family attended Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Santa Monica, California. Louis Jr. had his First Communion there.

Read Molière, Proust, Feydeau, Shakespeare, Ruskin, Montherlant, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer, among many others.

Jourdan and fellow French actor Gerard Philipe attended the Institut Stanislas, a private Catholic school in Cannes. Both boys were the offspring of local hotel owners.

He was nominated for a 1975 Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Guest Artist for his performance in the play, "13 Rue De L'Amour", at the Arlington Park Theatre in Chicago, Illinois.