French actor Louis Jourdan, who played a suave bon vivant in the Oscar-winning film ‘Gigi’ and had a long reign as Hollywood's top choice to play elegant international gentlemen, died on Saturday at the age of 93, his biographer said.

Jourdan, who also worked frequently on stage and television, died at home, Olivier Minne, his friend and biographer, told Reuters by telephone from Paris.

Jourdan starred in ‘Gigi,’ one of the most successful movies of the 1950s, as the dashing Gaston, who realizes he is falling for the title character, played by Leslie Caron, as she evolves from tomboy to courtesan-in-training.

‘Gigi’ dominated the 1959 Academy Awards with nine Oscars, a record at the time, including best picture and best director for Vincente Minnelli.

Jourdan sang the movie's title tune and it won the Oscar for best song, even though Maurice Chevalier's ‘Thank Heaven for Little Girls’ in the film was perhaps more memorable.

Illustrious career

In addition to ‘Gigi,’ Jourdan's notable films included ‘Three Coins in the Fountain’ (1954), ‘The Swan’ (1955) with Grace Kelly, ‘The Bride Is Much Too Beautiful’ (1956) with Brigitte Bardot and ‘Can-Can’ (1960), which co-starred Frank Sinatra and Shirley MacLaine.

In ‘Julie’ (1955) he had a chance to break from the stereotype by playing Doris Day's psychotic husband and television and stage work also provided more varied roles, including playing a homosexual attracted to a man played by James Dean in ‘The Immortalist’ on Broadway.

‘It was quite revolutionary for him to accept playing a homosexual on stage,’ said Minne, his biographer.

Later in his career directors discovered that Jourdan also could play evil villains - albeit handsome, urbane evil villains - such the Afghan prince Kamal Khan, James Bond's nemesis in the 1983 film ‘Octopussy.’

In Wes Craven's 1982 horror film ‘Swamp Thing’ he was the evil immortality-obsessed Dr. Anton Arcane and reprised the role ‘The Return of the Swamp Thing’ in 1989.

Jourdan's charm was lost on Elizabeth Taylor, however. In the 1963 movie ‘The V.I.P.s,’ he was an aging playboy having an affair with Taylor but the actress, then in the midst of her stormy first relationship with Richard Burton, was upset by a story that Jourdan's wife, Quique, had written about her for Paris Match magazine. Taylor reportedly insisted that Jourdan apologize in front of the cast and crew but he refused.

In 1985 Jourdan went on a touring stage version of ‘Gigi,’ playing the dapper Honore, the role filled by Chevalier in the movie. He retired from acting in 1992 and in 2010 France presented him the Legion of Honour award.

Jourdan and Quique, who met during his time in the French underground, married in 1946. He was once asked about the contrast between his long-running marriage and the playboy roles he so often filled on screen and said: ‘When one has been married more than 30 years it would be absurd not to admit there had been some sort of difficulties at some times ... but the important thing is that we have weathered them.’

The Jourdans' only child, Louis Henry Jourdan, died of a drug overdose in 1981.