Alan Mowbray

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Alan Mowbray (born August 18, 1896 in London , † March 25, 1969 in Hollywood ; actually Ernest Allen ) was a British theater and film actor .

Life

Alan Mowbray was born Ernest Allen in London in 1896. During the First World War he served in the British Army and received both the British Military Medal and the French Croix de guerre for his services in combat . After the war he began his career as a theater actor and appeared in London's West End , among other places . He took his stage name Alan Mowbray from a letter that the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson had sent to his cousin Robert Alan Mowbray Stevenson. In the 1920s he moved to the United States , where he toured from 1923 to 1929 with the Theater Guild in plays by Noël Coward and George Bernard Shaw . From 1926 he was also seen in comedies on New York Broadway . When the talkies revolutionized cinema in the late 1920s, theater actors like Mowbray were particularly in demand in Hollywood . In 1931 he finally stood in front of the film camera for the first time and from then on was very often cast in supporting roles as a British gentleman , butler or doctor. In Alexander Hamilton (1931) he played US President George Washington , for which he received good reviews.

Over the years he has appeared in various film genres. For example in comedies like Mein Mann Godfrey ( My Man Godfrey , 1936) alongside William Powell and Carole Lombard , in film dramas like Alexander Korda's Lord Nelson's Last Love ( That Hamilton Woman , 1941) with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh , but also in westerns as John Ford's My Darling Clementine ( My Darling Clementine , 1946) or in thrillers such as Alfred Hitchcock's the man who knew Too Much ( the man who knew Too Much , 1956) alongside James Stewart and Doris Day . A specialty of him were comedic Butler, whom he including in the of Hal Roach produced comedies Topper - The blonde ghost (1937) and How we live but happy! (1938).

In the 1950s and 1960s Mowbray appeared in a variety of American television series. He was also one of the founding members of the US actors' union Screen Actors Guild , for which he served as the first vice-president from 1933. He was also a member of the Royal Geographical Society .

From 1927 Mowbray was married to Lorayne Carpenter, with whom he had two children. The marriage lasted until his death. Alan Mowbray died of a heart attack in 1969 at the age of 72 in the Presbyterian Hospital in Hollywood . He was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City , California .

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Alan Mowbray in the All Movie Guide (English)
  2. ↑ cf. sag.org ( Screen Actors Guild )
  3. ^ Alan Mowbray, Character Actor, Is Dead at 72 . In: The New York Times , March 26, 1969.
personal data
SURNAME Mowbray, Alan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Allen, Ernest (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British actor
DATE OF BIRTH August 18, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH March 25, 1969
Place of death Hollywood