His first film appearance was in Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la Bête in 1946. He was first noticed in Christian-Jaque's Lucrèce Borgia (1953) as Lucrezia's lover picked up in Roma streets during Carnival, he is the next day pursued about through a forest like a game at bay by Lucrezia (Martine Carol) and her brother Cesare (Pedro Armendáriz). In 1956 he was directed by Roger Vadim in Et Dieu créa la femme (And God Created Woman) opposite Brigitte Bardot.