The Man in the Iron Mask (1977 film) The Man in the Iron Mask (1977 film) The Man in the Iron Mask is a 1977 television film loosely adapted from "The Vicomte de Bragelonne" by Alexandre Dumas and presenting several plot similarities with the 1939 film version. It was produced by Norman Rosemont for ITC Entertainment, and starred Richard Chamberlain as King Louis XIV and his twin Philippe, Patrick McGoohan as Nicolas Fouquet, Ralph Richardson as Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis Jourdan as D'Artagnan, and Ian Holm as the Chevalier Duval. Jenny Agutter plays Louis XIV's mistress, Louise de la Vallière and Vivien Merchant appears as Queen Marie-Therese. It was
Descendants of Louis XIV of France a product of years and generations of royal intermarriage between cousins. In 1659, as the war with France began to wind down, a union between the two royal families, of Spain and of France, was proposed as a means to secure peace. María Teresa and Louis XIV were double first-cousins, and it was proposed that they wed. His father was Louis XIII of France, who was the brother of her mother, while her father was brother to Anne of Austria, his mother. Such a prospect was intensely enticing to Anne of Austria, mother of Louis XIV and aunt of María