Jacques Sernas

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Jacques Sernas

Birth name	Jacques Sernas
Born	30 July 1925 Kaunas, Lithuania
Other name(s)	Jack Sernas
Notable roles	Paris in Helen of Troy.

Jacques Sernas, sometimes billed as Jack Sernas, born 30 July 1925, in Kaunas, Lithuania is a Lithuanian-born French actor with an international film career, first as a leading man and later as a character actor, perhaps best-known for his role as Paris in Helen of Troy.

Sernas was the son of Jokūbas Šernas, a signatory of the Act of Independence of Lithuania, who died when Jacques was a year old. His mother took him to Paris where he received his formal education.

As a teenager, he became active in the French Resistance and was captured by the Nazis, and spent a year in Buchenwald labour camp. When the war in Europe ended, Sernas pursued a career as a journalist (he was a reporter at the Nuremberg Trials), but was sidetracked into film acting.

He made his film debut in Gioventù perduta (Lost Youth) (1947) and became a popular star in French and Italian films. In the mid-50's, he was discovered by Hollywood where he made two films, Helen of Troy and Jump into Hell, and several TV productions for Warner Brothers, including Captain Without a Country, a remake of Captain Blood and Man From 1997. After this experience, Sernas returned to Europe and had great success in the peplum genre. In 1960, he made a cameo appearance in Fellini's La Dolce Vita and played a leading role in Salammbo, based on the Flaubert novel. He was also seen in the epic 55 Days at Peking (1963) and the comedy caper Midas Run (1969).

His mastery of four languages has enabled him to thrive as a successful character actor in the ensuing years and his range of films encompasses different genres from action to comedy, spaghetti westerns, contemporary and horror. Sernas has spent the last three decades living and working in Rome. His most recent appearances have been as a Cardinal in a TV film biopic of Pope John XXIII, Papa Giovanni (2002) and in Regina dei fiori (2005).