Douglass Dumbrille

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Douglass Dumbrille (born October 13, 1889 in Hamilton , Ontario , † April 2, 1974 in Woodland Hills , California ) was a Canadian - American actor.

life and career

Born in Canada, Dumbrille worked as a bank clerk and onion farmer before turning to acting. He joined a theater company and traveled with her through North America. Dumbrille made his Broadway debut in 1924 as Banquo in Shakespeare's Macbeth . He also appeared in a Ziegfeld production of The Three Musketeers in the role of Athos. Ten years later he played Athos again in a film version of Allan Dwan .

Dumbrille had his first film appearance in 1924, but it was not until the beginning of the sound film that he appeared there regularly. Due to his beefy stature and his deep voice, Dumbrille was mainly used in unsympathetic or tough roles, for example as a brutal villain or a strict figure of authority. He played gangsters in the films Der Frauenheld (1933) and Broadway Bill (1934). Frank Capra occupied Dumbrille in 1936 as a power-hungry lawyer in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town , who wants to bring Gary Cooper out of his millionaire heir. A year earlier, Dumbrille had already been used as a dark opponent of Cooper in the film Bengali , here he embodied the exotic rebel leader Mohammed Khan.

Dumbrille often played the serious counterpart of comedians like the Marx Brothers , Abbott and Costello, and Bob Hope . So the Marx Brothers drive him almost insane in the role of an unscrupulous manager in The Marx Brothers in the department store because they thwart all of his attempts at murder on his nephew. In the 1950s Dumbrille had more guest roles on television and had supporting roles in the period films Julius Caesar (1953) and The Ten Commandments (1956). In 1964 he retired from the film business after nearly 200 films and a few television appearances.

Dumbrille was married to his first wife, Jessie Lawson, from 1910 until her death in 1958. In 1960, at the age of seventy, he married 28-year-old Patricia Mowbray, the daughter of fellow actor Alan Mowbray . They remained married until Dumbrille's death in 1974. He died of a heart attack at the age of 84 and was buried in Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in North Hollywood .

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.b-westerns.com/villan46.htm
personal data
SURNAME Dumbrille, Douglass
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dumbrille, Douglas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian-American actor
DATE OF BIRTH October 13, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamilton , Ontario
DATE OF DEATH April 2nd 1974
Place of death Woodland Hills , California