André Luguet

Biography: life and films

Was there ever a smoother French actor than André Luguet? Whatever role he assumed - aviator, impresario, police inspector, seducer, playboy or just plan Mr Average - Luguet seldom failed to carry with him the aura of the perfect English gent. He was France's answer to Ronald Colman and David Niven, no less charming and just as lethally suave and seductive. His was a phenomenal acting career. In over sixty years he made around 130 appearances in films for cinema and television, and also had a very successful career in the theatre. In the 1930s he was a big star in France and, being perfectly bilingual, very nearly made a conquest of Hollywood. But Luguet was not the kind of actor to go chasing after fame for the fun of it. His career matured as gracefully and elegantly as he himself did, and whilst his charms may have appeared dated in his later years he remained as smooth and amiable as always, the most debonair man about town.

André Maurice Jean Allioux-Luguet (to give him his full name) was born on 5th May 1892, in Fontenay-sous-Bois, Val-de-Marne, France. The son of a theatre director he appeared destined for an acting career from an early age. He was educated in both France and Britain, which is how he came to speak English fluently and acquire the mannerisms and appearance of a graduate of the English public school. He began his acting career in a London theatre and completed his acting studies at the Paris Conservatoire. It was the French film company Gaumont that gave Luguet his first film roles, and from 1910 to 1917 he appeared in around thirty films, mostly directed by the company's star directors Léonce Perret and Louis Feuillade. In these early roles, Luguet was almost invariably cast as the carefree juvenile. Gradually, he would develop into a more sophisticated kind of charmer, a certain deviousness and subtle malice creeping into his portrayals. For the remainder of the silent era (1918 to 1929) the actor lent his talents to another ten silent films, whilst simultaneously pursuing a busy stage career. He joined the Comédie-Française in 1925.

With the arrival of sound, André Luguet was soon whisked off to Hollywood where he worked mostly on versions of American films intended for a French audience, produced by MGM and Warner Brothers. These include the Buster Keaton comedy Buster se marie (1931), which was directed by Claude Autant-Lara. He also worked alongside some big American movie stars on English language films such as John G. Adolfi's The Man Who Played God (1932) - where he starred with George Arliss and Bette Davis - and William Wellman's Love Is a Racket (1932), which partnered him with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. It was whilst in Hollywood that Luguet worked with Jacques Feyder on two of his films - Le Spectre vert (1930) and Si l'empereur savait ça (1931). Luguet also starred in the German version of the aviation-themed melodrama Gloria (1931), with Brigitte Helm. This was the first time he worked with Jean Gabin, who appears here in one of his earliest dramatic roles. The two actors worked together the following year on Anatole Litvak's Coeur de lilas (1932).

Having decided that a Hollywood career was not for him, Luguet returned to France in 1933 and divided his time between the theatre and the film studios. On stage, he triumphed in productions of Louis Verneuil's L'École des contribuables (1934) and Noël Coward's Private Lives (1934). On screen, he made noteworthy contributions to Maurice Tourneur's Samson (1936) and Fedor Ozep's La Dame de pique (1937). He directed one film, which he also scripted and starred in: Le Bluffeur (1932). Luguet scripted another film, Alexis gentleman chauffeur (1938), in which he played the lead opposite Suzy Prim, and began writing stage plays. His play La Patronne would be performed on stage in 1945 and then make it to the screen in 1950. Luguet remained actively involved with the stage until 1970. By now, the actor had shown himself to be equally adept at comedy and drama and was much sought after by film directors, although, as the 1930s wore on, he was more often cast in supporting roles. In G.W. Pabst's Jeunes filles en détresse (1939), he played Micheline Presle's father, and his character's name (Presle) was the one that the debutante actress promptly adopted as her stage name.

Luguet remained busy during the Occupation, now having graduated to middle-aged charmers - such as the one he played in Claude Autant-Lara's Le Mariage de chiffon (1941) - and shiftier individuals, exemplified by his music hall director in H.G. Clouzot's Le Dernier des six (1941). Luguet's comedic talents are very much on display in Jean Boyer's lively comedy Boléro (1942), in which he is perfectly partnered with Arletty. One of his last great roles was as the man who assumes the identity of another man he is mistaken for, in Alex Joffé's Six heures à perdre (1946). By this stage, André Luguet was barely halfway through his screen career but over the next thirty years screen roles worthy of his talents were few and far between.

With advancing years, Luguet matured into the kind of smoothly seductive oldster that attractive young women somehow find irresistible. He also had the bearing of a retired military type and a casual air of authority. Luguet shows up in Preston Sturges's The Diary of Major Thompson (1955), Michel Boisrond's Une parisienne (1957) and John Huston's The Roots of Heaven (1958). There is a bitter poignancy to André Berthomieu's comedy Sacrée jeunesse (1958), in which Luguet and another faded star, Gaby Morlay, play a pair of old fogies desperate to reclaim their lost youth. After appearing Jean Girault's dull comedy La Maison de campagne (1969), Luguet turned his back on cinema and devoted the last three years of his career to French television. His last screen role was Hugues de Bouville in the television serial Les Rois maudits (1972). He then retired to live out the rest of his days in peace on the Côte d'Azur. He died in Cannes on 24th May 1979, aged 87, and is now buried in the cemetery at Cagnes-sur-Mer. His daughter Rosine Luguet followed in his footsteps and had a successful acting career on screen and stage.

Filmography

Click here to view complete list of films...