Monty Woolley

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Monty Woolley's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Monty Woolley (born August 17, 1888 in New York City , New York , † May 6, 1963 in Albany , New York ; actually Edgar Montillion Woolley ) was an American film and stage actor .

Life

Monty Woolley grew up as the son of a hotelier - his father was the owner of the Marie Antoinette Hotel - on Broadway and was therefore one of the high society of the time at a young age . Due to his parents' fortunes, Woolley also enjoyed a high level of schooling, including Yale and Harvard universities . As a young man, Woolley began working at Yale as a professor of English , teaching Thornton Wilder and Stephen Vincent Benét , among others .

Woolley was comparatively open to his homosexuality for his time . He had close friendships with musician Cole Porter and actor Clifton Webb , who were also homosexual. With their support, the 40-year-old Woolley managed to enter professional acting later and got his first theater engagements on Broadway, for example in 1929 in Fifty Million Frenchmen and in 1935 in the plays Jubilee and The New Yorkers . It wasn't until 1936, at the age of 48, that Woolley first appeared in front of the camera (in a minor supporting role) in the comedy film Ladies in Love . After a short period he was able to establish himself as a supporting actor, his distinctive white beard served as his trademark, which also gave him the nickname The Beard . On Broadway, he celebrated success with his portrayal of an obnoxious star presenter Sheridan Whiteside , who happened to have to spend Christmas with a strange family and threw them into chaos, in the comedy The Man Who Came to Dinner . In 1942 he represented this role again alongside Bette Davis in the film adaptation of the same name .

Woolley's film career spanned 20 years and included 29 feature films as well as some television productions. After the success of the film version of The Man Who Came to Dinner, he starred in a few other comedies such as Holy Matrimony and Irish Eyes Are Smiling , in which he usually played the sometimes complicated, but quick-witted and amiable eccentric. Woolley managed to be nominated for an Oscar once in 1943 and 1945 : First in the category of Best Actor for the novel The Pied Piper , in which Woolley played a misanthropic Englishman who was somewhat reluctant to become a resistance fighter against the Nazis; then two years later in the Best Supporting Actor category for his portrayal of a scratchy Colonel with a good heart in the home front drama When you said goodbye . Parallel to his work in film, Woolley was also able to be won over as a speaker for radio productions. In the 1950s he ended his acting career with appearances in film and television.

Woolley died of kidney and heart failure in May 1963 at the age of 74 . Three years before his death, he was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame .

Filmography (selection)

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ John C. Wilson, Noel, Tallulah, Cole, and Me: A Memoir of Broadway's Golden Age . Rowman & Littlefield, 2015, ISBN 978-1-4422-5573-9 ( google.de [accessed May 17, 2020]).
  2. ^ Robert A. Schanke, Kim Marra: Passing Performances: Queer Readings of Leading Players in American Theater History . University of Michigan Press, 1998, ISBN 978-0-472-06681-0 ( google.de [accessed May 17, 2020]).