 He spent a brief period serving in a U.S. Army theatrical unit in Japan in 1946, then studied at the University of California, Berkeley.Ophuls became a naturalized citizen of France in 1938, and of the United States in 1950.When the family returned to Paris in 1950 Marcel became an assistant to Julien Duvivier and Anatole Litvak, and worked on John Huston's "Moulin Rouge" (1952) and his father's "Lola Montès" (1955).