C. Aubrey Smith
Sir Charles Aubrey Smith , CBE (born July 21, 1863 in London , England , † December 20, 1948 in Beverly Hills , California ) was a British cricketer and theater and film actor . He was one of the most high-profile character actors of the 1930s and 1940s in Hollywood and played particularly often British aristocrats or military.
Life
Early life and cricket career
C. Aubrey Smith was born in London in 1863 to a surgeon. He attended Charterhouse School and studied at the University of Cambridge , where he played on the cricket team in the position of bowler . He played with his team all over England. Because of his idiosyncratic playing style, his nickname was "Round the Corner Smith". In 1889 he led the English national team to victory against South Africa in Port Elizabeth as team captain . In South Africa he also tried his hand at gold prospecting at this time. He suffered severe pneumonia and was wrongly pronounced dead by the doctors. After returning to England, he did not resume his sports career and worked as a stockbroker and teacher. He also considered becoming a doctor like his father, but gave up the idea.
Acting career
Smith's acting career began in 1895 on various London stages. The following year he had his first major success with The Prisoner of Zenda in a double role. Smith took on an important supporting role as Colonel Zapt in the 1937 film adaptation . Before the First World War , he went to the United States with his family and took part in a number of Broadway plays. One of his most successful stage appearances in 1928 was the comedy The Bachelor Father by Edward Childs Carpenter . Smith repeated the role of a wealthy English nobleman with several illegitimate children in the 1931 film adaptation of Robert Z. Leonard with Marion Davies as the oldest of his illegitimate descendants. With the advent of talkies , Smith, who had occasionally appeared as a film actor in British and American productions as early as 1915, became a very busy supporting actor.
The tall actor with the distinctive mustache and bushy eyebrows was mostly used as a conservative and honorable authority figure in supporting roles. He mostly embodied members of the English aristocracy or high-ranking military. Initially under contract with MGM , the actor played, among other things, the father of Jane ( Maureen O'Sullivan ) in Tarzan, the ape man from 1932 and a pastor in the drama Guilty Hands . In 1933 he was seen alongside Greta Garbo in Queen Christine . In 1936, as the grim, prejudiced Earl of Dorincourt in The Little Lord , whose heart is softened by his grandson Freddie Bartholomew , he had one of his few main film roles. A year later he was in John Ford's recruit Willie Winkie , the film adaptation of the short story of the same name by Rudyard Kipling , as the grandfather of Shirley Temple at the side of another child star.
In addition to his appearances in American films, Smith starred regularly in British films in the 1930s, including in Sixty Glorious Years , Herbert Wilcox 's biography about Queen Victoria in 1938 . Smith played the Duke of Wellington . In 1940 he took on a supporting role as police chief in Alfred Hitchcock's Hollywood debut Rebecca . During the war years he played, among others, Baron Kelvin in the biopic Madame Curie with Greer Garson from 1943, and a year later an English officer in the drama The White Cliffs of Dover . In the 1940s, the character actor was so well known that he even made a cameo in the film Jewel Robbery in 1946 . Smith worked until his death and has appeared in over 100 films. His last film, Little Brave Jo , a remake of George Cukor's Four Sisters , went on sale after his death.
Private life
During his stay in South Africa, he married Isabella Wood and had a daughter. They stayed married until his death. In 1932, Aubrey Smith founded the Hollywood Cricket Club. He helped promote cricket as a sport in the United States. Members of the club included David Niven , Leslie Howard , Basil Rathbone , Ronald Colman , Richard Barthelmess and Boris Karloff . Aubrey Smith served intermittently as the club's president. The actor died of pneumonia on December 20, 1948 at the age of 85. His ashes are buried next to his mother in Hove .
Awards
In 1938 Charles Aubrey Smith was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire and six years later by George VI. beaten to Knight Bachelor . He also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame .
Filmography
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literature
- David Rayvern Allen: Sir Aubrey. A Biography of C. Aubrey Smith, England Cricketer, West End Actor, Hollywood Film Star. Elm Tree Books, London 1982, ISBN 0-241-10590-0 .
- The Anglo-African Who's Who and biographical Sketch-Book. 1907, ZDB -ID 148468-0 (Reprint: Jeppestown Press, London 2006, ISBN 0-9553936-3-9 ).
Individual evidence
- ↑ C. Aubrey Smith at the New York Times
- ↑ C. Aubrey Smith at the New York Times
- ↑ C. Aubrey Smith in the Find a Grave database . Accessed September 2, 2017.
Web links
- C. Aubrey Smith in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- detailed biography with numerous screenshots (English)
- C. Aubrey Smith on All Movie Guide (English)
- C. Aubrey Smith in the Internet Broadway Database (English)
- C. Aubrey Smith on cricketarchive.com
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Smith, C. Aubrey |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Smith, Charles Aubrey (full name); Smith, CA |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British actor and founder of the Hollywood Cricket Club |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 21, 1863 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 20, 1948 |
| Place of death | Beverly Hills |