Lionel Atwill

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Elsie Mackay and Lionel Atwill (1922)

Lionel Atwill (born March 1, 1885 in Croydon , Great Britain , † April 22, 1946 in Hollywood , USA ) was a British-American film and theater actor.

Life

Lionel Atwill became known in 1932 for the title role in Doctor X ( Dr. X ), a mixture of crime film and horror film . Lionel Atwill played the creepy head of a research institute so convincingly that throughout his life he was preferred by film studios as a mad scientist in horror films. From Dr. X , a sequel was made in 1939 under the title The Second Life of Dr. X ( The Return of Dr. X ) with Humphrey Bogart in the role of the insane Dr. Xavier.

Then took on Lionel Atwill starred in Mystery of the Wax Museum ( Mystery of the Wax Museum ). In this horror film, Atwill played one of his best roles as the eccentric artist Ivan Igor. Equally noteworthy is his portrayal of a murderous zoo director in the pre-code horror film Murders in the Zoo that same year (1933).

Lionel Atwill played supporting roles in five sequels to the horror classic Frankenstein , which made Boris Karloff famous. In Frankenstein's son he played the inspector Krogh, whose arm was ripped off by the monster. In Frankenstein returns he played Dr. Bohmer transplanting the hunchbacked Ygor's brain into the monster's body. He also appeared in smaller roles in Frankenstein meets the Wolfman , Frankenstein's house and Dracula's house . In one of his star roles as a Mad Scientist , Atwill was also seen in Man Made Monster (1941) by George Waggner , which also made the horror film debut by Lon Chaney Jr. (in the role of the creature) represents.

Lionel Atwill didn't just appear in horror films. In a film adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes -Romans The Hound of the Baskervilles ( The Hound of the Baskervilles ) from the year 1939, he played the role of Dr. Mortimer. A few years later he appeared in the film The Secret Weapon ( Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon ) in the role of Professor Moriarty , Sherlock Holmes' mortal enemy. The actor Basil Rathbone played the role of Sherlock Holmes in both films and Nigel Bruce the role of Dr. Watson . Roy William Neill directed each. Atwill also appeared several times in the crime series around Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto .

In the pirate film Unter Piratenflagge ( Captain Blood ) he played a plantation owner on the side of Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland . Lionel Atwill shot two melodramas with Marlene Dietrich . In Das Hohe Lied ( Song of Songs ) he played an aging baron who falls in love with Marlene Dietrich after seeing a statue of her. In The Devil is a Woman ( The Devil Is a Woman ), he embodied the police officer Don Pasquale , which is by Marlene Dietrich first seduced and then abandoned. 1942 Lionel Atwill played a supporting role as chargierender theater actor in the comedy to be or not ( To be or not to be ), in which Ernst Lubitsch directed.

When Lionel Atwill was accused of showing pornography and seducing a minor at a party in his house in the early 1940s , it marked a serious crisis in his career. He then only got supporting roles in B horror films . In one of his last films, Genius at Work , he worked again with Bela Lugosi , next to whom he could already be seen in 1935 in The Sign of the Vampire and who already returns in Son of Frankenstein and in Frankenstein Ygor, the hunchbacked friend of the Monsters, and in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man played the monster.

Lionel Atwill died of pneumonia on April 22, 1946 at the age of 61 .

Filmography (selection)

literature

  • Rainer Dick: Lionel Atwill. The distinguished demon . In: Rainer Dick: The stars of the horror film . Tilsner, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-910079-63-6 , pp. 42-50.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Atwill, Lionel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British-American film and stage actor
DATE OF BIRTH March 1, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Croydon , UK
DATE OF DEATH April 22, 1946
Place of death Hollywood , USA