Retired Senior Foreign Service Officer James Perrin died in Falmouth, Maine on September 17. 2016.

Mr. Perrin was born in Boston on January 27, 1930, to Hugh and Helen Perrin. He was raised in Dedham, Massachusetts, and was a graduate of the Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard College.

From childhood on, Mr. Perrin’s first love was singing. After college he made performing his career, and at age 20 he became a member of Equity, the professional actors union. At 21 he was singing on the cruise ships that ran between New York and Buenos Aires, and the following year he had a featured role in a musical revue starring Maurice Chevalier in Paris.

After returning to the United States, he spent several years performing in night clubs across most of North America. He also appeared extensively on television, his credits ranging from the NBC Opera to the Eddie Fisher Show.

He soon realized, however, that show business was not kind to performers unless they were near the top of their profession, and that he did not seem destined for those ranks. Accordingly, he joined CBS Television in New York as a Production Assistant and then Stage Manager.

Nostalgic for the time he had spent in France as a performer, he won a two-year Fulbright Fellowship to study film directing at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinematographiques (IDHEC) in Paris. At that time, IDHEC had just turned out several leaders of the “New Wave” movement in French films, such as Louis Malle and Serge Bourgignon. After two years’ study Mr. Perrin received IDHEC’s diploma in film directing and editing.

During this second stay in Paris, he married Martha Bodel, a CBS Production Coordinator whom he had met and courted in New York. He also served as Stage Manager for an Ed Sullivan Show taped at Paris’ Cirque d’Hiver, and headed a CBS operation in Paris that expedited videotape shipments of the 1960 Rome Olympics to New York.

Upon returning to the U.S., Mr. Perrin spent several years as Associate Producer in the documentary division of CBS News, notably on the award-winning Accent series. He then became Executive Producer for Cultural Program at National Educational Television, the forerunner of the Public Broadcasting System.

He soon realized that the higher he rose in executive ranks, the further removed he found himself from the very elements that had drawn him first to performing and then to TV production. He also knew he enjoyed living and working overseas. Thus, in 1966 he joined the Foreign Service of the now-defunct U.S. Information Agency, which was in charge of USG public affairs operations overseas, including press, culture and education.

His first assignment was as Press Attaché in the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the turbulent days following General Mobutu’s accession to power. This was followed by assignments as Public Affairs Officer (PAO) in Fort Lamy (now N’djamena), Chad, Deputy PAO in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Counselor of Embassy for Public Affairs in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

This succession of tropical posts had had an increasingly adverse effect on his wife’s health, and they spent the next seven years in Washington before obtaining medical clearance to return overseas. During this time Mr. Perrin attended the National War College (now the National Defense University) and served as Deputy Director and then Acting Director of the Agency’s Television and Film Service, which produced and acquired audiovisual materials for all U.S. diplomatic posts overseas.

In 1982 he was assigned as Cultural Attaché to Madrid, Spain, where he also served on the jury of the 1985 Monte Carlo International Film Festival, and in 1986 he was assigned as Deputy Public Affairs Officer in Paris.

Following his retirement in 1990, he and his wife moved back to Madrid, where for several years he worked in concert and dance management with his good friend Luis “Luisillo” Dávila, a former leading Spanish dancer. He also went on tour with Luisillo’s Flamenco dance company in Italy, Japan and various cities throughout Spain.

After Martha’s death in Madrid, Mr. Perrin moved to Brunswick in 2001, where for several years he was president of the Angels, a volunteer support group for Maine State Music Theatre. He also appeared in several minor roles and served on the theater’s Advisory Board of Trustees. Outside of music and the theater, his main interests were bridge, photography and fishing.

He was particularly proud of the Perrin Fellowship he established in 2006 at the Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire. The Fellowship offers a year of independent travel and study for a graduating senior before he or she continues their formal studies.

Mr. Perrin was predeceased by his sister Gail Perrin and by two wives, Martha Bodel Perrin and Mary Devine Perrin. He is survived by his brother, Dr. Mark Perrin, as well as by his former wife Valerie Hobson Perrin. Contributions in his memory can be made to the Perrin Fund at the Phillips Exeter Academy.