Charles Boyer and the Art of Seduction
May 23 – 27, 2008
Few actors can boast an international career as enduring as that of Charles Boyer. Like his British counterpart James Mason, the Gallic star possessed an extraordinary voice, a purring caress that could also dismiss with chilling hauteur. Boyer’s looks were less spectacular than Mason’s: his downcast glance, the amused curl to his lip, the thinning hair and his signature throbbing temple which augured small storms were not the attributes of a successful leading man. Yet that is exactly what he was for several generations, before becoming an in-demand character actor. He attracted most of Hollywood’s top female stars—Garbo, Dietrich, Dunne, de Havilland, Bergman and even the fledgling Jennifer Jones, whose May-December romance with Boyer is the crux of Lubitsch’s Cluny Brown.
When cast as gallant, suave, ironic lovers with a dark side, his performances were sometimes filled with a streak of malevolence. With Jean Arthur in History Is Made at Night, he showed his most romantic, fatalistic side. With Bergman and de Havilland he was the quintessential heatless seducer, showing signs of remorse only when it was too late. But in romantic comedies like the matchless Love Affair co-starring Irene Dunne, he was tender and playful, finding a sympathetic partnership that brought out all his contradictory qualities.
Like many European artists, he found life in America congenial. He remained a proud Frenchman, founding the French Research Foundation in Los Angeles, which promoted French history and culture, an interest that earned him an honorary award from the Academy in 1943. For over 40 years, this homebody was married to British actress Pat Paterson. After her death in 1978, he took his own life. Like many of his protagonists he was a man of mystery and melancholy. As Dunne said of him, “Charles had genuine warmth, like a fire that starts slowly. He was the kind of log that was difficult to ignite but then would burn so beautifully.” The warmth that he could project as well as the diamond-hard cruelty and above all his consummate skill as an actor make him a legendary star to admire even now, 30 years after his death.
For a listing of the films in the series go to Program Overview.
Click on
Calendar to view the schedule, film descriptions and to purchase tickets online.
Grateful thanks to Ian Birnie, director of the Film Department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which will present a Boyer program in July. The Jennifer Jones and Charles Boyer series were programmed by Joanna Ney.
