JOURDAN, LOUIS

Contributed by: The James Bond Movie Encyclopedia by Steven Jay Rubin

(June 19, 1921–February 14, 2015; birth name: Louis Robert Gendre): Smooth French leading man who portrayed exiled Afghan prince Kamal Khan in Octopussy. Jourdan appears to have enjoyed himself in one of the most unsympathetic roles in his career. He had played cads before—especially in The Best of Everything (1959)—but that was nothing compared to the seething evil he projects in Octopussy.

A native of Marseille, Jourdan made his feature film debut in director Marc Allégret’s Le corsaire (1939). Eight years later, he made his English-language debut in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Paradine Case. However, it was his role as playboy Gaston Lachaille opposite Leslie Caron in Gigi (1958) that won him international stardom.

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