William Marshall (actor, 1917)

William Marshall (born October 12, 1917 in Chicago , United States , † June 8, 1994 in Boulogne-Billancourt , France ) was an American band musician , film actor , film director and film producer .

Live and act

Marshall began his artistic career in 1936 as a singer in Fred Waring's orchestra, and founded his own combo the following year. In 1940 Marshall began his work as an actor in front of the camera, three years later he made his stage acting debut as part of a so-called Army Air Show. Marshall stayed busy as a film actor until shortly after the end, but mostly appeared in B-films, in which he made little impression as an attractive eye-catcher. At that time (1942 to 1948) Marshall was married to the French film actress Michèle Morgan .

In the late 1940s, Marshall moved to France, where he met Micheline Presle . They married in 1950, and that same year Marshall gave her the lead role alongside Errol Flynn in the French-American film " The New Orleans Tavern ". Four years later he also worked at her side in the French production “ White Slaves for Tangiers ”. In the same year 1954 this Marshall marriage also failed. William Marshall ended his screen career in front of the camera with a French Eddie Constantine film in 1958.

Back in the USA, he directed the science fiction film The Phantom Planet in 1961 and remarried in the same year, this time the former film star Ginger Rogers . With her in the lead role, Marshall had the comedy Marry me, crooks from the cinema veteran Wilhelm Dieterle in Jamaica in 1964 . stage. The film was a total flop and now ended Marshall's cinematic ambitions for good. Nevertheless, in 1966 he founded Motion Picture Studios on the same Caribbean island. In 1969, his third marriage also failed. In the following years he was hardly heard from, and William Marshall tried his hand at writing again, with only moderate success: The novel “The Deal” reflected Marshall's experience with the film industry in the USA and Europe.

In his marriage to Michèle Morgan, his son Michael “Mike” Marshall was born, who had a moderate career as an actor. With Micheline Presle he has a daughter, Tonie Marshall , who initially also became a film actress, but later switched to film directing and also worked as a screenwriter and film producer.

Filmography

As an actor, unless otherwise stated:

• 1940: Ultimatum for derrick L-9 (Flowing Gold)
• 1940: In the frenzy of the cosmopolitan city ( City for Conquest )
• 1940: Land of the Wicked ( Santa Fe Trail )
• 1942: Flying with Music
• 1942: Tomorrow We Live
• 1943: Mantrap
• 1943: I Escaped from the Gestapo
• 1943: The Boy from Stalingrad
• 1944: Winged Victory
• 1944: Belle of the Yukon
• 1945: Love Fair (State Fair)
• 1946: Murder in the Music-Hall
• 1946: Earl Carroll Sketchbook
• 1947: Calendar Girl
• 1947: Blackmail
• 1951: The New Orleans Tavern (The Adventures of Captain Fabian) (Production)
• 1951: Hello God (Director)
• 1954: White slaves for Tangier (Les Impures)
• 1955: Rencontres à Paris
• 1958: Hot kisses, sharp shots ( Incognito )
• 1961: The Phantom Planet (Director)
• 1964: Marry me, crook! (The Confession) (Production)

literature

• International Motion Picture Almanac 1965, Quigley Publishing Company, New York 1964, p. 186.
• Ephraim Katz : The Film Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. Revised by Fred Klein and Ronald Dean Nolen. New York 2001, p. 908

Web links

• William Marshall in the Internet Movie Database (English)