Louis Jourdan

A beautiful horticulturist visits her stepfather to discover the mystery behind her mother's untimely death. Her stepfather wants to kill her to create his immortality serum, but the Swamp Thing comes to her rescue. The two become an unlikely couple, hunted by the insane Dr. Arcane. ~ All Movie Guide

In this crime comedy, the daughter of a notorious French burglar must follow in her father's illustrious footsteps after he is suddenly killed. She soon finds herself nearly in over her head as she is required to perform a variety of death-defying stunts in order to ply her trade. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Faye Dunaway stars as a successful madam who is faced with difficulties from her "girls" in this made-for-TV movie. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

Five Emmy nominations went to the two-part TV drama The First Olympics: Athens 1896. The story begins in 1894, when Baron Pierre de Courbetin (Louis Jourdan) announces his intention to stage the first Olympic games of the Modern Era within two years in Athens. The baron heads to the US to recruit an athletic team. Despite disinterest, opposition and spotty funding, de Courbetin assembles his team with the help of Princeton professor William Sloane. The thirteen chosen Americans have a pretty bumpy time of it, but most survive to the final Olympic contest: the grueling Marathon. The supporting cast is top-heavy with veterans from both America and England, including Angela Lansbury, Honor Blackman, Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna. Among the leading players is future NYPD Blue star David Caruso as Irish-American athlete James Connolly. Originally running five hours, The First Olympics was first telecast May 20 and 21, 1986. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director Wes Craven, who went on to fame as the force behind blockbuster horror films such as A Nightmare on Elm Street, departed from his favorite genre to film this unique cult classic -- a spoof on the mad scientist movies of the 1950s. Adrienne Barbeau stars as Alice Cable, a government agent sent to replace a man who has disappeared while guarding a secret experimental lab in the middle of the Louisiana bayous. Dressed in heels and a skirt, Cable professes unease at her strange new surroundings, but she is soon wooed by Dr. Alec Holland (Ray Wise). Holland is working on a concoction that combines plant and animal cells. Arcane (Louis Jourdan) is the criminal mastermind who is trying to steal the secret recipe for the potion. When Arcane and his mercenaries break into the government camp, they kill Holland's sister Linda (Nannette Brown) and the scientist is accidentally doused with his own formula and bursts into flames, then dives into the swamp. Arcane's men pursue Cable, but she is rescued by a mysterious green man. It takes several rescues for her to understand that the Swamp Thing (Dick Durock) is Dr. Holland, transformed by his own formula. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

Count Dracula is a three-part British television adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel. Louis Jourdan plays the count not as villain or pathetic victim of circumstance, but a charismatic charmer, who doesn't need to suck the blood of his lady victims to make them faint. Part One takes place in Transylvania, with British attorney Jonathan Harker (Bosco Hogan) arriving at Dracula's castle to close a real estate deal--and to nearly lose his life and soul to his sinister host. Part Two finds Dracula at large in England, beckoning the unfortunate Lucy (Susan Penhaligon) into the world of the Undead. The story grows more intense in Part Three, with vampire hunter Professor Van Helsing (Frank Finlay) rallying the forces of Good against the elusive Dracula. Count Dracula was first telecast in the US on PBS' Great Performances series in March of 1978. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The made-for-television The Man in the Iron Mask was, at the very least, the twelfth film version of Alexandre Dumas' 1847 novel. The title character is Philippe (Richard Chamberlain), rightful heir to the throne of France. Enemies of Philippe's twin brother, King Louis XIV (also Chamberlain) plot to kidnap the monarch, lock him in a dungeon, and obscure his identity with an iron mask. But aging musketeer D'Artagnan (Louis Jourdan), who'd virtually raised Louis from boyhood, reunites his old musketeer cohorts to rescue Louis and overthrow the wicked Philippe. Emmy nominations went to scripter William Bast and costumer Olga Lehmann. Photographed by the great Freddie Young, Man in the Iron Mask was first telecast January 17, 1977 ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Richard Chamberlain stars in this lavishly appointed adaptation of the classic Alexandre Dumas adventure story. When Count Edmond Dantes (Richard Chamberlain) is stripped of his wealth and sent to prison for crimes he did not commit, he swears to get revenge against those who wronged him. With the help of Abbe (Trevor Howard), a fellow prisoner, the Count escapes and sets forth to see that justice is done. The supporting cast includes Tony Curtis as Mondego, Louis Jourdan as De Villefort, and Donald Pleasance as Danglars. This seventh of eight film versions of The Count of Monte Cristo was produced for American television but received a theatrical release in Europe. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

An unsubtle but effective TV-movie satire of the "Miss America" syndrome, Great American Beauty Contest stars Joanna Cameron as a fire-breathing feminist who enters the contest of the title. She plans to win the crown, then utterly destroy the contest by delivering a scathing attack on exploitation and sexism instead of an acceptance speech. A subplot concerns contest judge Louis Jourdan, who uses his position to extract sexual favors from the more desperate contestants. Eleanor Parker, the girls' chaperone, gives Jourdan his comeuppance in the film's most satisfying sequence. We won't spoil the twist ending, but we will note that one of the contestants is played by Farrah Fawcett, whose specialty is an endearingly ridiculous belly dance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Made for television, Run a Crooked Mile is an kaleidoscopic espionager filmed in Britain. Louis Jourdan plays a schoolteacher on holiday who is injured in an serious auto accident. When he awakens, Jourdan discovers that two years have elapsed, during which time he has lived the life of a wealthy wastrel. He also learns that his alter ego has become mixed up in a plot to undermine the economy of Europe. Run a Crooked Mile is distinguished by imaginative photography, and by offbeat performance of leading lady Mary Tyler Moore, whose allegiances and honesty are in doubt until the final scenes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ritual of Evil was a sequel to the earlier TV movie Fear No Evil; both were pilots for a never-realized Universal series, Bedevilled. Louis Jourdan stars as a psychiatrist investigating the suicide of one of his patients. He stumbles onto the realization that the death was tied in with the Supernatural, and that perhaps he shouldn't probe any deeper. Were he to stop at this point, the producers would had to have filled the remaining hours' worth of film with commercials or cartoons, so Jourdan forges ahead at the risk of his own life. This concept was eventually refined into Universal's short-lived series The Sixth Sense, which utilized much of the eerie William Goldenberg background music first heard in Ritual of Evil. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the opening episode of The F.B.I.'s fourth season, Inspector Lew Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) and his assistant Tom Colby (William Reynolds) go undercover to trap master spy Lorenz Tabor (Louis Jourdan). Ingredients essential to the intrigue are a bus ticket, a cryptanalysis, and a dead man's hearing aid, which is actually a miniature "holding tank" for top-secret microfilm. Featured in the cast are Nancy Kovack, later the wife of symphony conductor Zubin Mehta, and future Hill Street Blues costar James Sikking. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide