Laird Cregar

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Laird Cregar in the film King of the Toreros , 1941

Samuel Laird Cregar (born July 28, 1913 in Philadelphia , † December 9, 1944 in Los Angeles ) was an American film actor . Because of his untimely death he was only able to take part in 16 feature films, but was still considered a great acting talent of his time.

Life

Laird Cregar was born into a wealthy Philadelphia family and attended Winchester College in the UK . He trained as an actor in Longport and in his hometown of Philadelphia. After working as a member of various theater groups in the 1930s, he made his breakthrough in 1940 with the lead role in the self-produced performance of the play Oscar Wilde . A year later he played his first major role in the historical drama Hudson's Bay alongside Paul Muni - Cregar had previously made two other films, but had got small roles there. Cregar then played a psychopathic detective in I Wake Up Screaming (1941) and a sinister nightclub owner in the thriller The Scarred Hand (1942) alongside Veronica Lake and Alan Ladd .

Not even 30 years old, the heavyweight Cregar could easily play middle-aged men in character roles. This is one of the reasons why he was considered a young actor of very promising talent in Hollywood. In Ernst Lubitsch's comedy A Heavenly Sinner , he appeared in 1943 as an exceptionally friendly and understanding devil. A year later he starred in the horror film Scotland Yard Intervenes alongside Merle Oberon . His last film was Hangover Square (1945). The previously overweight actor put himself on a draconian diet to starve himself down to 150 pounds for this film. His organism could not withstand these stresses. Cregar had to undergo gastric surgery and a few days later his heart failed. The actor died of a heart attack on December 9, 1944, at the age of only 31 .

Filmography

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Cregar, Laird
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cregar, Sanuel Laird (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American film actor
DATE OF BIRTH July 28, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Philadelphia
DATE OF DEATH December 9, 1944
Place of death los Angeles