Jean-Pierre Aumont

Jean-Pierre Aumont, born Jean Pierre-Salomon, was a tall, charming, blond and blue-eyed leading man, who became the archetype of the "continental" gentleman. Born into the French upper class (his father owned a chain of department stores, while his mother was a former actress), he leaped into theater at age 16, studying at the Paris Conservatory. He made his stage debut at 21 and his first film appearance a year later in Jean de la Lune (1931); his career really took off after he appeared in Cocteau's play La Machine Infernal in 1934, establishing his attractiveness as a leading man and prompting film-makers to demand his services. Following his appearance in Carné's classic film Hôtel du Nord (1938), he put his career on the back burner in order to serve with the Free French forces in Tunisia, Italy, and France; a brave soldier, he was ultimately awarded the Legion of Honor and the Croix de Guerre. With France under Hitler's occupation, he moved to California in 1942, where his role in a stage production led to a contract with MGM. Cleverly utilizing his background, the studio assigned him the leads in Cross of Lorraine (1942) and Assignment in Brittany (1943), a film about the French resistance. His Hollywood career was fairly routine, and he returned to France after the war. However, he had become popular in the states, and continued to make occasional American TV, stage, and movie appearances into the '80s. The author of several plays, he also penned the autobiography Sun and Shadow (1976). A complex love-life produced marriages to French film actress Blanche Montel, whom he divorced, and Hollywood vixen Maria Montez, who died in 1951. He and Montez had a daughter, Tina (Maria-Christina) Aumont, who went on to become a film actress. An engagement to star Hedy Lamarr was broken off and followed by a marriage, divorce, and re-marriage to actress Marisa Pavan. His brother is French film director Francoise Villiers.