Book review – “Sun and Shadow” by Jean-Pierre Aumont

Aumont belongs to that sub-category of movie stars – foreigners who went to Hollywood and usually played second leads in between some interesting marriages. Michael Wilding is another I can think of in this category. Nonetheless, he had a fascinating life and I really enjoyed his memoirs. 

 

Aumont has been blessed by good and bad fortune. He had only been acting for a short time before being picked to act in a play by Jean Cocteau and Louis Jouvet. Good luck. His looks ensured he enjoyed a steady film career as a leading man during the 1930s (good luck), until interrupted by war. (Bad luck) He was on leave visiting his dying mother (bad luck) when his platoon was mostly wiped out (good luck). He managed to get a visa to America from Vichy France, was picked to act in a play with Katherine Cornell (through a French theatre acquaintance) which didn’t go to Broadway, but got him film offers. (Good luck). He signed with MGM, starred in two films (no support roles for him), the most notable of which was The Cross of Lorraine (good luck), then went to fight for the Free French in Africa, Italy and France. Real service too – driving tanks, in amidst running into Marlene Dietrich; he was injured twice. (Good and bad luck)

 

He returned to Hollywood, where his reign as a leading man didn’t last long (very few French accented actors have had a long reign as a star - Charles Boyer, Maurice Chevalier, maybe Louis Jourdan). However he did carve out a decent career as a second lead, in films like Lili and Hilda Crane. He also worked in France and on stage (including Broadway)… and even had a nightclub act (despite the fact he wasn’t the best singer). 

 

Aumont is still perhaps best remembered (in a certain segment of the population, anyway) for his marriage to Maria Montez – the barely had started dating when he proposed, right before he took off for 18 months of service, but they were happy until her tragic early death (an odd one: a heart attack in a hot bath). Montez comes across a bit sketchy in this account - nice, beautiful, eccentric, devoted to her husband and astrologers. Apparently she and Aumont were going to star in Orphee for Jean Cocteau - the mind boggles. (They couldn't get the financing then the next they heard of it he was making it with Jean Marais.) Her death is one of the most moving sections of the book, though. 

 

Aumont later married Marisa Pavan, and was also in the 40s engaged to Hedy Lamarr; he also hints at a romance with Grace Kelly (who was alive when this book came out). His daughter Tina became an actor and was married to Christian Marquand (like Aumont, a French star who played some support roles in Hollywood). 

 

Aumont was probably too good looking to write a really good book – I get the feeling he wasn’t as an accomplished raconteur in the way, say, Michael Caine or David Niven was. He’s a bit up himself at times, constantly referring to the fact that he got better reviews on stage than his female co-stars. 

 

 But there’s lots to enjoy. Particularly strong is a chapter on starring with Vivien Leigh on Broadway, which includes some astute analysis of Leigh’s personality and acting, as well as an account of her breakdown; also performing with Al Pacino on Broadway (apparently Al loved to paraphrase), working with Cocteau, Louis Jouvet, Joan Littlewood (in a play on the Congo Crisis), and Francois Truffaut on Day for Night (he says things like “the problem with real life is it’s so badly directed” – very Truffaut – the director wrote the foreword to this book); the elongated shoot that was Castle Keep. Worth a read.