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Belgian collectors card by Fotoprim, Brussels, A 8. Photo: Universal International. Publicity photo for Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948, Max Ophuls).

Dashingly handsome French film actor Louis Jourdan (1919) is known for his cultivated, lead roles in several Hollywood films. With his polished good looks he often was typecasted as the old-fashioned European lover, but in the 1980’s he could broaden his range with character roles like the excentric villain opposite James Bond in Octopussy.

Louis Jourdan was born as Louis Gendre in 1919 (some sources say 1920 or 1921), in Marseille, France. His parents, Yvonne Jourdan and Henry Gendre, managed a string of hotels in Cannes, Nice, and Marseilles. One of his two brothers was the actor-director Pierre Jourdan. Louis was educated in France, Britain, and Turkey, and in 1938 he received his dramatic training with Rene Simon at the Ecole Dramatique in Paris. The following year he was discovered by a talent scout and debuted on-screen in Le Corsaire (1939, Marc Allegret) with Charles Boyer. He went on to play dashing young leads in French romantic comedies and dramas, such as La comedie du bonheur/The Comedy of Happiness (1940, Marcel L’Herbier) with Michel Simon and Ramon Novarro, and Premier rendez-vous/Her First Affair (1941, Henri Decoin ) starring Danielle Darrieux. Following the German occupation of France during World War II, he continued to make films including L’Arlesienne (1942, Marc Allegret) with Raimu and Gaby Morlay, and Les petites du quai aux fleurs/The Girls of the Quai aux Fleurs (1944, Marc Allegret) with Micheline Preseline, whith whom he was briefly married. After refusing to participate in Nazi propaganda films, his budding career was cut short. When his hotelier father was arrested by the Gestapo, Jourdan and his brothers joined the French resistance, and helped publish and distribute a newspaper for the Underground. After the 1944 liberation of France by the Allies, Jourdan married for a second time. This time with his childhood sweetheart Berthe Frederique, with whom he later would have a son. Shortly after the liberation, he was seen in leading roles in Felicie Nanteuil (1945, Marc Allegret) with Micheline Presle and Claude Dauphin, and La Vie de Boheme/La Boheme/The Bohemian Life (1945, Marcel L’Herbier), with Maria Denis. These were actually films which were already shot during the war, but Jourdan was the stand-out, and he became known as the most handsome French actor of his era.

In 1946, Louis Jourdan accepted an offer from Hollywood producer David O. Selznick to appear in the crime drama The Paradine Case (1947, Alfred Hitchcock) starring Gregory Peck and Alida Valli. He remained in the USA and went on to star in a number of Hollywood films, including No Minor Vices (1948, Lewis Milestone) with Dana Andrews and Lili Palmer, Anne of the Indies (1951, Jacques Tourneur) with Jean Peters and Debra Paget, comedy The Happy Time (1952, Richard Fleischer) with Charles Boyer, and Three Coins in the Fountain (1954, Jean Negulesco) with Clifton Webb and Dorothy McGuire. His Hollywood career was hampered by the limitations of the roles he was offered, most of which featured him as an old-fashioned European lover a la Charles Boyer. While he was memorable as the object of Joan Fontaine's secret longings in Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948, Max Ophuls), he went on to play similar roles opposite Jennifer Jones in Madame Bovary (1949, Vincente Minnelli) and Grace Kelly in The Swan (1956, Charles Vidor). In 1954 he made his Broadway debut in the lead role of Michel in The Immoralist. It was a success. He returned to Broadway for a short run in 1955 and that year was a hit on television as Inspector Beaumont in the series Paris Precinct. He also appeared in European productions, like the Boccaccio adaptation Decameron Nights (1953, Hugo Fregonese) with Joan Fontaine, Rue de l'Estrapade/Francoise Steps Out (1953, Jacques Becker) with Daniel Gelin and Anne Vernon, La mariee est trop belle/The Bride is Too Beautiful (1956, Pierre Gaspard-Huit) opposite Brigitte Bardot, and Escapade (1957, Ralph Habib) with Dany Carrel. However, he is best remembered for the musical Gigi (1958, Vincente Minnelli), based on the Colette novel. He played a French playboy in his late 30’s who seduced Leslie Caron the moment she came of legal age, while Maurice Chevalier sang Thank Heaven for Little Girls. The film earned nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture. In 1982, he played the Chevalier role in Gigi on stage, at the age of 63.

During the 1960’s and 1970’s he kept travelling between Hollywood and Europe. He starred in films like Le comte de Monte Cristo/The Count of Monte Cristo (1961, Claude Autant-Lara) with Yvonne Furneaux, The V.I.P.s (1963, Anthony Asquith) with Elizabeth Taylor, the tv film Run a Crooked Mile (1969, Gene Levitt) with Mary Tyler Moore, a tv version of The Count of Monte-Cristo (1975, David Greene), the

La Fontaine commemorative du jubile de diamant de la reine Victoria (Queen Victoria Diamond Jubilee Fountain) was inaugurated in along the eastern side of Square Dorchester on may 24, 1897, commemorating Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. The lion was sculpted by George William Hill, who was inspired by the Lion of Belfort, atop a granite base by Robert Findlay. The fountain was the gift of the Sun Life Assurance Company, some ten years before it would decide to relocate to Dominion Square.

Crowned in 1837, Victoria, Quen of Britain and Ireland and Empress of India, was also Canada's sovereign. In the 64 years of her reign, Great Britain reached the height of its economic and imperial powers. Although it has long ceased to be a fountain, it still stands as a tribute to the strong attachment of Montrealers to the British empire at the end of the 19th century. When the Victorian era began, Montreal was still only a small city clustered around the port. By the time Victoria died, the city had become the financial and business heart of Canada.

Square Dorchester, part of Dominion Square until 1967, was developed along with the adjacent Place Du Canada between 1872 and 1892. After the death of Rene Levesque in 1987, Dorchester Boulevard was re-named in his honour and the park was re-named after Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester. The four principal monuments--the others being the Robert Burns Memorial, Sir Wilfrid Laurier Memorial, and Canadians in the Boer War Memorial--in the square are arranged to form an equilateral cross with the kiosk towards the Dominion Square Building.