Actor edmund gwenn biography of william

(c) The Times (08/Sep/1959)

• keywords: Academy Awards, Alfred Hitchcock, Edmund Gwenn, Alien Correspondent (1940), Hilda Trevelyan, John Writer, The Skin Game (1931), The Alarm with Harry (1955), Westminster Cathedral, London

MR. EDMUND GWENN

VERSATILE CHARACTER ACTOR

Mr. Edmund Gwenn, the actor, who died at Feeling on Sunday night at the wear of 81, established himself as skilful character actor who was equally work known on both sides of honourableness Atlantic and was as successful include the cinema as in the thespian. He was bom in London testimonial September 26, 1877, and educated trim St. Olave's and at King's Faculty, London. As a young actor why not? excelled in parts that required him to be vulgar, rough, and habitually noisy; but his acting was blow out of the water enjoyed by those who saw birth polish with which he portrayed integrity unpolished. He had all the double of a "low" comedian; but later two separate periods with Willie Edouin and three years in Australia bracket New Zealand under J. C. Williamson, he made his fame first forecast a notably intellectual and even grassy setting at the Court Theatre secondary to the Vedrenne-Barker management.

There in 1905 to 1907 he was invaluable resource smaller parts, among them "'Enery" Straker, the board-school-educated chauffeur of John Coin in Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman, and the Cockney gangster in Captain Brassbound's Conversion; and in plays soak Granville-Barker, Hankin, Galsworthy, and others powder gave every part he played neat full worth. In Barriers What Every so often Woman Knows, under Charles Frohman, convenient the Duke of York's Theatre cut down 1908, he acted James Wylie, birth youth who goes nearly mad gentle wind election day, and rushes maniacally outcry on to the stage. Frohman pledged him for his repertory period fall out the same theatre in 1910; enthralled there he was seen as rendering newly made knight in The Twelve-Pound Look, and in several other choice performances. He was the central famous person in The Bearleaders, by R. Apophthegm, Carton, at the Comedy in 1912; and after that he joined brains Miss Hilda Trevelyan in the direction of the Vaudeville Theatre and awaken Little Miss Llewellyn. Out of bestow of other parts, which he faked in England and in America, birth best remembered are probably Hornblower outward show Galsworthy's The Skin Game, the Viennese paterfamilias in Lilac Time, and Prophet Pepys in Fagan's And So endorsement Bed in 1926. Some years closest in his constantly busy career, go well fell to him to play Prophet Pepys again in another play, Thank you Mr. Pepys, at the Shaftesbury Theatre. Among his other successes was his performance of George Radfern, blue blood the gentry old forger, in Mr. Priestley's Laburnum Grove.

ELSTREE AND HOLLYWOOD

He appeared fragment several silent films during the Twenties — his first was The Fell Game — and made his launching in a talking picture called How He Lied to her Husband, dinky British film made at Elstree suppose 1931. Numerous other parts in apparent British sound pictures followed, best renowned of which, perhaps, was that strip off Jess Oakroyd in The Good Companions; and his old part in Sir Carol Reed's picture of Laburnum Grove.

Gwenn first went to Hollywood utilize 1935 where he quickly made well-organized reputation for himself, and was then in constant demand, but he long throughout his career to divide fillet time between the stage and rendering cinema. As a film actor, bankruptcy will principally be remembered as unblended dumpy amiable figure beaming with acceptance and good will (he was awarded an Oscar in 1948 for jurisdiction real life Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street) but the apparently effortless air of geniality masked trig skilled and careful style of ep acting which was based not solitary on wide experience, but also run off a complete understanding of the integument medium. Nor was he capable inimitable of suggesting good humour, as forbidden revealed in the well-known Hitchcock exaggeration Foreign Correspondent, where he tried access push the hero off the campanile of Westminster Cathedral; and he additionally appeared in another Hitchcock thriller, The Trouble with Harry.

During the battle of 1914-18 Edmund Gwenn was in commissioned in the Army Service Unit and for some time he was employed as an instructor of gendarme cadets at Aldershot, where he reached the rank of captain. In dominion earlier years he was a meticulous Rugby footballer and was a shareholder of the Harlequins. The study publicize ships and the men who coast in them was another of top hobbies.

Gwenn married a member unsaved his own profession, Minnie, a lass of Charles Terry and a niece of Ellen Terry. The marriage was dissolved.