With his masculine charm, chiseled good looks and engaging French accent, Louis Jourdan became one of the movies' most admired leading men of the 1940s and '50s before evolving into a suave character actor and sometimes villain. Our tribute focuses on Jourdan's heyday and includes the long-anticipated TCM premiere of Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), a tale of unrequited love set in early 20th-century Vienna and directed by fabled German-born director Max Ophüls. Jourdan plays a dashing pianist, and Joan Fontaine costars as the lovely young woman who suffers from a lifelong infatuation with him. Not a big success in its day, the movie has emerged as a cult favorite and, according to host Robert Osborne, is the No. 1 film requested by TCM viewers.

The other Jourdan features are the nostalgic comedy The Happy Time (1952), the suspense thriller Julie (1956), the swashbuckler Dangerous Exile (1958) and the Oscar® winning Lerner-and-Loewe musical Gigi (1958), with Louis in another of his most indelible roles as the rakish Gaston.

by Roger Fristoe