He best remembered for building a huge studio complex near Madrid, Spain and for producing a series of super-spectacles, involving huge casts and giant sets, during the early to mid-1960s.
Was interested in photography and film production from an early age. In the late 1940's, he became the official photographer for the Vatican and subsequently produced documentary films for the Chancellery of the Vatican.
He was educated at the Sorbonne, starting work in the film industry as a salesman for MGM in France. He moved to the United States at the outbreak of the Second World War and became a production executive at Columbia.