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French actor Jean-Pierre Aumont (1911-2001) was the stylish gentleman in more than 100 films. The blond-haired, blue-eyed leading man wooed and wed during his film career some of the most beautiful actresses - on screen and in real life too. He was born in Paris in a Jewish family. His parents were Dutch entrepeneur Alexandre Salomons and French actress Suzanne Cahen. His mother's uncle, stage actor, Georges Berr of the Comedie Francaise, gave Jean-Pierre a glimpse into the theatre world. His younger brother Francois grew up to become director Francois Villiers. Despite many objections from his family, Jean-Pierre went to study drama at the Paris Conservatory at the age of sixteen. His stage debut occurred in 1930 and his film debut came in Jean de la Lune (1931, Jean Choux). His career-defining role was Oedipus in Louis Jouvet's acclaimed 1934 production of La Machine Infernale by Jean Cocteau. Cocteau had personally selected Aumont for the part. La Machine Infernale took on almost a cult-like following among the youth of Paris and was considered a greatly influential breakthrough in the French theatre. From there Aumont’s career both on stage and screen began to take off. His first film hit was Lac aux Dames (1934, Marc Allegret). He starred opposite Simone Simon as a swimming instructor, a role originally intended for Johnny Weismuller. Throughout the 1930’s he was a rising star in French cinema, starring alongside Louis Jouvet in Drole de Drame (1937, Marcel Carne) and Hotel du Nord (1938, Marcel Carne). Then World War II broke out and his career was cut short.

In 1942 Jean-Pierre Aumont fled to Hollywood and began working with MGM, where he enjoyed a successful, if routine, film career. His love life was anything but routine - he almost married Hedy Lamarr and in 1943 he did marry Dominican actress Maria Montez, known as the Queen of Technicolor. After filming The Cross of Lorraine (1943, Tay Garnett) and after only one month of marriage, he left the USA to join the Free French Forces. He was sent to North Africa and participated in Operation Torch, specifically in Tunisia. He later moved with the Allied armies through Italy and France. He was seriously injured when his Jeep was blown up by a landmined bridge. French Brigadier General Charles-Joseph Brosset, also in the Jeep, was killed. After the war, Aumont returned to France with Maria Montez. The couple soon began to work together in films like Siren of Atlantis (1949, Gregg Tallas), Hans le Marin (1949 directed by Aumont's brother, Francois Villiers) and La vendetta del corsaro (1951, Primo Zeglio). In 1951 Maria suddenly died after fainting and drowning in her bath. Aumont continued to work both in Hollywood and Europe after his wife's tragic death. He starred as the magician in Lili (1953, Charles Walters) with Leslie Caron, and the film was an enormous success. Then in 1956 Aumont married Italian actress Marisa Pavan, twin sister of Pier Angeli and star of such highly acclaimed films as The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit and The Rose Tattoo. The two starred in one film together, John Paul Jones (1959, John Farrow) in which Pavan played the romantic lead to Robert Stack and Aumont made a cameo as Louis XVI. They were divorced in 1962 and then remarried each other, and remained happily married until Aumont's death. In the 1960’s and 1970’s he appeared in the stage production of Gigi and the stage production and film adaptation of Des journees entieres dans les arbres (1976, Marguerite Duras) with Madeleine Renaud. With Francois Truffaut he worked on La Nuit Americaine (1973), a masterul film about the rigours of film making. Aumont played the aging and somewhat philisophical matinee idol, Alexandre. He starred with Michele Morgan in Le chat et la souris (1975, Claude Lelouch). Later work includes A Tale of Two Cities (1989) and the Merchant Ivory films Jefferson in Paris (1995, James Ivory) and The Proprietor (1996, Ismail Merchant). Because of his bravery during World War II, Aumont was decorated in 1991 with the Legion d'Honneur and the Croix de Guerre, and in 1992 he received an honorary Cesar Award. At the age of 90 he died of a heart attack. Actress Tina Aumont was his and Maria Montez’s daughter.

Sources: Wikipedia, Jean-Pierre Aumont pages on Geocities.com and IMDb.

Dutch postcard by Takken, nr. 1937.

It is hard to get a photo of the Alamo without people in it, unless you get up early before everyone else. I stayed at the Menger Hotel, which is across the street and so I was able to get this shot in the Spring in Texas. A tiny rain shower had just passed through.

Originally named Mision San Antonio de Valero, the Alamo served as home to missionaries and their Indian converts for nearly seventy years. Construction began on the present site in 1724. In 1793, Spanish officials secularized San Antonio's five missions and distributed their lands to the remaining Indian residents. These men and women continued to farm the fields, once the mission's but now their own, and participated in the growing community of San Antonio.

In the early 1800s, the Spanish military stationed a cavalry unit at the former mission. The soldiers referred to the old mission as the Alamo (the Spanish word for "cottonwood") in honor of their hometown Alamo de Parras, Coahuila. The post's commander established the first recorded hospital in Texas in the Long Barrack. The Alamo was home to both Revolutionaries and Royalists during Mexico's ten-year struggle for independence. The military — Spanish, Rebel, and then Mexican — continued to occupy the Alamo until the Texas Revolution.

San Antonio and the Alamo played a critical role in the Texas Revolution. In December 1835, Ben Milam led Texian and Tejano volunteers against Mexican troops quartered in the city. After five days of house-to-house fighting, they forced General Marin Perfecto de Cos and his soldiers to surrender. The victorious volunteers then occupied the Alamo — already fortified prior to the battle by Cos' men — and strengthened its defenses.

On February 23, 1836, the arrival of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna's army outside San Antonio nearly caught them by surprise. Undaunted, the Texians and Tejanos prepared to defend the Alamo together. The defenders held out for 13 days against Santa Anna's army. William B. Travis, the commander of the Alamo sent forth couriers carrying pleas for help to communities in Texas. On the eighth day of the siege, a band of 32 volunteers from Gonzales arrived, bringing the number of defenders to nearly two hundred. Legend holds that with the possibility of additional help fading, Colonel Travis drew a line on the ground and asked any man willing to stay and fight to step over — all except one did. As the defenders saw it, the Alamo was the key to the defense of Texas, and they were ready to give their lives rather than surrender their position to General Santa Anna. Among the Alamo's garrison were Jim Bowie, renowned knife fighter, and David Crockett, famed frontiersman and former congressman from Tennessee.