Clifford McLaglen

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Clifford Henrick McLaglen , also Clifford Hendrick McLaglen , (born June 15, 1892 in London - Stepney , Great Britain , † September 9, 1978 in Huddersfield , West Yorkshire , Great Britain ) was a British actor who climaxed his career in German silent film in the late 1920s.

Live and act

McLaglen was the younger brother of Victor McLaglen (star and supporting actor in numerous John Ford films) and was in his shadow all his life. In the early 1910s, Clifford was making a living working in a tin mine in Cornwall . In 1914, when the First World War broke out, he was drafted. Back in civil life, unlike Victor, he initially did not find a connection to the film business, but hired himself out at the circus, where he worked with horses and performed rope tricks, and in variety shows.

Eventually Clifford found his way to the cameras, and the handsome, tall McLaglen was given supporting roles in British films. In the old Roman war drama “ Boadicea ” he appeared at the side of his younger brother Cyril McLaglen , in the same year (1927) he was a co-star in the desert melodrama “ The White Sheik ” by the German experienced Brits Lillian Hall-Davis and Warwick Ward as well as one of the contributors in Alberto Cavalcanti's film " Yvette ", shot in Paris . Then people began to notice him in Berlin and hired McLaglen for important roles in Richard Oswald's Villa Falconieri and the mountaineering drama The Battle of the Matterhorn , where he appeared at the side of Luis Trenker . Also in 1928 McLaglen starred in England under the direction of Hans Steinhoff in two German-British productions, A Girl and Three Clowns and Night Figures . In 1929, the year of the transition from silent to sound film, he was Conrad Veidt's antagonist in the Australian drama Das Land ohne Frauen . Insufficiently proficient in the German language, the final breakthrough of the sound film in 1930 also meant the end of McLaglen's short career in Germany.

McLaglen then went to Broadway in New York for a role that same year, but after 23 performances of the comedy " An Affair of State " at the Broadhurst Theater (November / December 1930) the play was canceled again. Then he returned home to London. There Clifford McLaglen could hardly find any offers in film, and after a captain role alongside Bela Lugosi in The Mystery of the Mary Celeste and another in a production by director Karl Grune , who had emigrated from Germany , McLaglen's screen career ended in 1936. Little is known about the later years of his life, only that he served with the rank of major in World War II and that he should have taken part in the protective measures against Prime Minister Winston Churchill during his visit to Iceland in 1941. McLaglen also belonged to a state film unit. Nothing is known about his activities after 1945.

Filmography

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ McLaglen's birth information on ancestry.com . The often read place of birth “Cape Town, South Africa” is therefore wrong
  2. ↑ An Affair of State in the Internet Broadway Database (English)
  3. ↑ McLaglen's photo on ancestry.com
personal data
SURNAME McLaglen, Clifford
ALTERNATIVE NAMES McLaglen, Clifford Henrick (full name); McLaglen, Clifford Hendrick (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British actor
DATE OF BIRTH June 15, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH London - Stepney , UK
DATE OF DEATH September 9, 1978
Place of death Huddersfield , West Yorkshire , UK