Edmund Gwenn

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Edmund Gwenn , actually Edmund John Kellaway , (born September 26, 1877 in Wandsworth , London , England , † September 6, 1959 in Woodland Hills , Los Angeles , USA ) was a British actor . For his portrayal of Santa Claus in The Miracle of Manhattan (1947), he was awarded the Oscar for best supporting actor. In addition, Gwenn made four films directed by Alfred Hitchcock .

Life

Edmund Gwenn was born in London in 1877 under the name Edmund John Kellaway, the son of a civil servant. After attending college, Gwenn began his theater career in Wales in 1895. George Bernard Shaw was so impressed with his acting that he cast Gwenn in the first production of Man and Superman and in five other of his plays. Gwenn's career was interrupted by his military service during World War I. In 1916, however, he had his first film appearance in Macbeth . After the war he continued his career as a theater actor, but occasionally appeared in silent films . From 1931 he was regularly seen on the screen. He immediately played a leading role in Up to the Knife , directed by Alfred Hitchcock . After several other films produced in England, he was invited to Hollywood by RKO Pictures around 1935 to appear in the drama Sylvia Scarlett alongside Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant . Numerous supporting roles followed, such as in A Restless Life (1936) or as Mr. Bennet in the Jane Austen adaptation Pride and Prejudice (1940). Mostly cast in good-natured roles, his brief appearance as an assassin in Hitchcock's The Foreign Correspondent (1940) was a surprising exception.

For his role as Santa in The Miracle of Manhattan (1947), he received both a Golden Globe and an Oscar in the category of Best Supporting Actor . Three years later he was awarded the Golden Globe again in the same category, this time for the film Mister 880 , which also earned him an Oscar nomination. From 1950 he worked increasingly for US television. Gwenn worked with Hitchcock again shortly before the end of his career: In Always Trouble with Harry (1955), he played one of the leading roles as a hunter who is unnecessarily troubled by a corpse. In 1957 he withdrew from the film business.

A marriage that Gwenn had entered into in 1901 ended in divorce around 1916, after which he did not remarry. His brother Arthur Chesney (1882-1949) and his cousin Cecil Kellaway (1890-1973) were also actors. Gwenn died of pneumonia after suffering a stroke twenty days before his 82nd birthday in Woodland Hills, California. He was cremated and his ashes are kept in the chapel of Pines Crematorium in Los Angeles. Gwenn was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1751 Vine Street for his contribution to cinema .

Filmography (selection)

Awards

  • 1948: Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for The Miracle of Manhattan
  • 1951: Oscar nomination for best supporting actor for Mister 880

Web links

Commons : Edmund Gwenn  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Gwenn, Edmund
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kellaway, Edmund John (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British actor
DATE OF BIRTH September 26, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH Wandsworth , London , England
DATE OF DEATH September 6, 1959
Place of death Woodland Hills , Los Angeles , USA