Inside the Hotel Martinez’s pivotal role in Cannes during the French Resistance of World War II

Every May, Hollywood’s glitterati descend on Cannes for its annual Film Festival, which features – along with actors, directors and models – the Hotel Martinez at the center of the opulent affair.

Film festival jurors snag luxurious rooms and suites inside this historic Art Deco palace, the crown jewel of the French Riviera, which overlooks the shimmering Mediterranean Sea.

Since opening in 1929, Martinez has starred with some of the world’s most famous actors – from Rita Hayworth and Charlie Chaplin to Sophia Loren, Liz Taylor and Sean Connery.

But beneath its cinematic splendor lies a chilling story that haunts Hotel Martinez to this day.

Its founder, Emmanuel Michel Martinez, an intrepid activist in the French Resistance movement, helped Jews, refugees and spies escape Nazi terror during World War II – all while oblivious German officers were stationed only floors above. away.

“The story has never been told — it’s a 100-year saga,” Danny Rosner, director and co-author of Phillip M. Kenny’s new book, “The Hotel Martinez,” which is out now, told The Post.

“The drama began the day it opened its doors in 1929 when Hotel Martinez ran into financial difficulties accompanied by the stock market crash,” said Rosner.

Palermo-born Martinez, the son of a Sicilian port master, worked in the hotel trade across France before saving enough francs to finance his dream of becoming a hotelier.

When he opened the Hotel Martinez in 1929, it immediately became one of the most elegant vacation spots along the Cote d’Azur – embodying the spirit of the Années folles, “crazy years” – amid Europe’s roaring 20s.

Then, six months after its debut, the US stock market crashed, devastating tourism.

Martinez sought to keep his hotel afloat, making sure his staff remained employed despite the financial strain. He defrauded his creditors and managed, somehow, to avoid the block of auctions that hit many other French hotels.

Then the Holocaust and World War II broke out, with France among the first nations to surrender to the Nazis in June 1940. Some of the floors in Hotel Martinez were occupied by German SS and Italian Military Command officers as they ruthlessly ruled the country.

Martinez, like other hoteliers throughout France during the German occupation, had no choice but to comply.

But Martinez experienced an unexpected political awakening, brought on by his daughter Micheline’s fiancé – a Canadian intelligence officer named Tom Kenny, who helped British pilots and spies escape from Vichy France.

Sensing an opportunity to be of service, Martinez went into action for the French resistance, secretly supporting Kenny as he helped hundreds of Jews, refugees and spies.

Many hid on the lower floors of the hotel as they plotted a route to safety.

Meanwhile, Italian and German officers were stationed on the floors above.

Days after his wedding, Kenny – a distant relation of Theodore Roosevelt – was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned on espionage charges.

Martinez worked tirelessly for his son-in-law’s release, liaising with Kenny’s family in Canada, who had strong ties to the international banking industry as founders of the Royal Bank of Canada.

Micheline, who became pregnant with their first child, exchanged prison letters with Kenny, who underwent four grueling months of interrogation by his Nazi captors.

In the end, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt intervened, sending a letter to “the American Ambassador at Vichy . . . asking him to obtain a special favor from the French military authorities for the investigation of his ‘cousin’ Thomas Kenny. . . . .to be brought to more reasonable dimensions”, writes Kenny, who is the son of Thomas Kenny, in the book.

After his release, Kenny continued to fight against the Nazi regime as a spy, eventually escaping under the cover of night to Gibraltar in late December 1942, and then making his way to Spain in early 1943.

Around that time, French businessman and Nazi collaborator Mendel Skolnikoff loaned Martinez 19 million francs, which the hotelier paid back two months later.

Skolnikoff, however, was kidnapped in June 1945 and brutally murdered under the orders of the French secret services for collaborating with the Nazis.

The French government then accused Martinez of selling the hotel to Skolnikoff, whom they saw as a black marketeer, and of collaborating with the Italian and German occupiers, prompting them to seize his hotel in 1944.

“All of his property and valuables were confiscated and his estate now owes the French government billions of francs,” Rosner told The Post.

The French government kept Martinez until 1982, when it was sold to new owners, the Concorde Group.

Martinez did not see a single franc of money from his beloved hotel before he died in Italy in 1973.

The legal battle for compensation continues today.

Despite troubled finances, Hotel Martinez continues to dazzle stars and A-listers, hosting the opening ceremony of the Cannes Film Festival – its fantastic sun deck, prime people-watching location on the Croisette.

As for Martinez, the legacy — and his name — live on, with the Hotel Martinez sign illuminated above the five-star retreat in all its cinematic glory.