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Philip Jutras, a former Maine legislator and a World War II veteran whose efforts to encourage contact between American veterans of D-Day and the French people won him France's highest honor, died on Tuesday.
Jutras, 87, died from a head injury he suffered in a fall in his home in Sainte-Mere-Eglise, the first French village liberated by Americans in the D-Day invasion.
Those in Maine who knew him described Jutras as a colorful and debonair character who made connections wherever he went.
"He was an engaging and outgoing person who enjoyed both the intellectual and social aspects of the Legislature," said Severin Beliveau, a lawyer in Preti Flaherty Beliveau Pachios and Haley's Augusta office.
Jutras, who grew up in Massachusetts in a Canadian French-speaking family, landed on Utah Beach just after more than 10,000 troops parachuted into Sainte-Mere-Eglise around midnight on June 6, 1944. His supply unit moved on to Sainte-Mere-Eglise, where he stayed for months with the family of the village's mayor.
He returned to the United States immediately after the war. He served in the state Senate in the 1965-66 session and in the House in the 1969-70 and 1971-72 sessions, representing Sanford and Wells.
He worked as a funeral home director, at a television and appliance store, and as manager of a movie theater at Wells Beach.
In the 1970s, after his first wife died, he returned to Normandy to "get off the merry-go-round," he told the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram. There, he renewed his acquaintance with the widowed daughter of the mayor, Antoinette Castel. They married and he threw himself into French life.
He helped establish the Airborne Museum in Sainte-Mere-Eglise, amassing a collection of airplanes, gliders, tanks and uniforms, and the everyday items of a D-Day soldier's life. The museum drew hundreds of thousands of visitors a year.
Historians and movie directors sought him out. He appeared briefly in the 1998 Steven Spielberg movie "Saving Private Ryan."
He received the French Legion of Honor, France's highest award, and stood next to President Bill Clinton during the 50th anniversary of D-Day.
On May 27, 2002, during a visit to Normandy by President George W. Bush, Jutras gave a presentation of a stained glass window in the local church portraying the town's liberation by the U.S. 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions.
Luanne Pachios of Cape Elizabeth met Jutras when he stayed at the former Augusta House, a hotel run by her father. Legislators gathered at the hotel to socialize and dance. Beliveau said Jutras would shine at the formal dinner dances.
In France, Jutras discarded his Canadian accent for a Parisian one. Of medium height, with his white, wavy hair, Jutras was able to charm just about everyone, his friends said. "He persuaded the natives that he was, in fact, a French national," said Beliveau.
Pachios said Jutras and his French wife would often visit her family in Maine. "He was a very charming man who made things happen. He was an operator in the best sense of the word," said Pachios.
Jutras is survived by his wife and two daughters by his first wife. A funeral service was scheduled for Thursday at the church in Sainte-Mere-Eglise, where he is to be buried. The U.S. Embassy said it is sending two representatives to the funeral.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Staff Writer Beth Quimby
