After a few more small parts, he was prominently featured in Christian-Jaque's Lucrèce Borgia (1953) as one of Lucrezia's lovers, and as an Austrian soldier in Luchino Visconti's Senso (1954).
In 1956, he was directed by Roger Vadim in And God Created Woman (Et Dieu... créa la femme) opposite Brigitte Bardot.
That film's success led to starring roles in the movies No Sun in Venice (1957), Temptation (1959), and The Big Show (1960) and leads opposite actresses Maria Schell, Jean Seberg, and Annie Girardot.
In 1962, Marquand appeared as French Naval Commando leader Philippe Kieffer in Darryl F. Zanuck's World War II movie The Longest Day, which led to further roles in international productions such as Behold a Pale Horse (1964), Lord Jim (1965) and The Flight of the Phoenix (1965).
He appeared in feature films and television throughout the 1970s, and played a French plantation owner in Francis Ford Coppola's re-edited Vietnam war epic Apocalypse Now Redux (1979/2001).