Edmund Gwenn
Edmund Gwenn was an English actor. On film, he is best remembered for his role as Kris Kringle in the Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the corresponding Golden Globe Award. He received a second Golden Globe and another Academy Award nomination for the comedy film Mister 880. He is also remembered for his appearances in four films directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
As a stage actor in the West End and on Broadway, he was associated with a wide range of works by modern playwrights, including Bernard Shaw, John Galsworthy and J. B. Priestley. After the Second World War, he lived in the United States, where he had a successful career in Hollywood and Broadway.
Life and career
Early years
Gwenn was born in Wandsworth, London to John and Catherine Kellaway. His brother was the actor Arthur Chesney, and his cousin was the actor Cecil Kellaway. Gwenn was educated at St. Olave's School and later at King's College London. He began his acting career in the theatre in 1895, and learned his craft as a member of Willie Edouin's company, playing brash comic roles. In 1901 he married Minnie Terry, niece of Dame Ellen Terry. In the same year, he went to Australia and acted there for three years with the J. C. Williamson company. His wife accompanied him, and when Gwenn was in a production of Ben Hur that was a disastrous failure, she restored the couple's fortunes by accepting an engagement from Williamson. Later, the couple appeared on stage together in London in a farce called What the Butler Saw in 1905 and, in 1911, when Irene Vanbrugh made her debut in variety, she chose Terry and Gwenn to join her in a short play specially written by J. M. Barrie.When he returned to London, Gwenn appeared not in low comedy but in what The Times called "a notably intellectual and even sophisticated setting" at the Court Theatre under the management of J. E. Vedrenne and Harley Granville-Barker. There, in 1905 to 1907, in the words of The Times, "he was invaluable in smaller parts every part he played its full worth", including Straker, the proletarian chauffeur to John Tanner in Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman, and Drinkwater, the cockney gangster in Captain Brassbound's Conversion. He also appeared in plays by Granville-Barker and John Galsworthy, in Elizabeth Robins's suffragette drama Votes for Women and in works by other contemporaries. In Barrie's What Every Woman Knows in the role of the over-enthusiastic James Wylie he impressed the producer Charles Frohman, who engaged him for his repertory company at the Duke of York's Theatre. In 1912, Gwenn went into management in partnership with Hilda Trevelyan. His career was interrupted by his military service during the First World War, serving as an officer in the British Army. During the war, Gwenn's marriage broke up and was dissolved. His ex-wife remarried but remained on affectionate terms with him.
Leading roles on stage and screen
After peace returned, Gwenn's leading roles in the West End during the 1920s included Old Bill in Bruce Bairnsfather's Old Bill, M.P. ; Christian Veit in Lilac Time ; the title role in A. A. Milne's The Great Broxoff ; Leo Swinburne in Good Luck by Seymour Hicks and Ian Hay ; and Hippolyte Gallipot in Lehár's Frasquita. Looking back at Gwenn's career, The Times considered, "Out of scores of other parts which he played in England and in America, the best remembered are probably Hornblower in Galsworthy's The Skin Game, the Viennese paterfamilias in Lilac Time and Samuel Pepys in Fagan's And So to Bed in 1926."Gwenn began his film career in 1916, playing Macbeth in The Real Thing at Last, a satire of the American film industry written by Peter Pan playwright J. M. Barrie. A notable early role was a recreation of his stage character Hornblower in the 1921 Anglo-Dutch silent film of The Skin Game, which he reprised ten years later in Alfred Hitchcock's early sound version of The Skin Game. His debut in a talking picture was in an adaptation of Shaw's How He Lied to Her Husband, made at Elstree in 1931. Of Gwenn's many British film roles, The Times considered his best known to be Jess Oakroyd in The Good Companions with John Gielgud and Jessie Matthews and Radfern in Carol Reed's Laburnum Grove with Cedric Hardwicke. His final British film role, as a capitalist trying to take over a family brewery in Cheer Boys Cheer is credited with being the first authentic Ealing comedy.
Gwenn appeared in more than eighty films, including Pride and Prejudice, Cheers for Miss Bishop, Of Human Bondage and The Keys of the Kingdom. George Cukor's Sylvia Scarlett was his first appearance in a Hollywood film, as Katharine Hepburn's father. He settled in Hollywood in 1940 and became part of its British colony. He had a small role as a Cockney assassin in a Hitchcock film, Foreign Correspondent in 1940. For his Santa Claus role in Miracle on 34th Street he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He received a second Oscar nomination for his role in Mister 880. Near the end of his career, he played one of the main roles in Them! and in Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry. His last film role was in the Spanish satire The Rocket from Calabuch, directed by Luis García Berlanga.
On Broadway Gwenn starred in the acclaimed 1942 production of Chekhov's Three Sisters, starring Katharine Cornell, Judith Anderson, and Ruth Gordon. Time proclaimed it, "a dream production by anybody's reckoning – the most glittering cast the theatre has seen, commercially, in this generation."
Later years
Gwenn remained a British subject all his life. When he first moved to Hollywood, he lived at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills. His home in London had been reduced to rubble during the bombings by the German Luftwaffe in the Second World War. Only the fireplace survived. What Gwenn regretted most was the loss of the memorabilia he had collected of the actor Henry Irving. Eventually, Gwenn bought a house at 617 North Bedford Drive in Beverly Hills, which he later shared with the former Olympic athlete Rodney Soher. At the age of 78 he travelled from his home in California for a reunion with his ex-wife in London. He told a reporter, "I never married again because I was very happy with my wife. I simply stayed faithful to the memory of that happiness."Death
Gwenn died from pneumonia after suffering a stroke, in Woodland Hills, California, twenty days before his 82nd birthday. He was cremated, and his ashes were placed in the private vaults at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles. Gwenn has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1751 Vine Street for his contribution to motion pictures.On March 5, 2023, Gwenn's misplaced urn was located in Vault 5 of Chapel of the Pines Crematory by researcher Jessica Wahl and Hollywood Graveyard YouTube channel creator Arthur Dark. After a GoFundMe campaign was organized by Wahl and Dark with the permission of Gwenn's surviving family, Gwenn's urn was relocated to a publicly accessible niche in the Cathedral Mausoleum of Hollywood Forever Cemetery on December 3, 2023.
Filmography
The Real Thing at Last as Rupert K. Thunder / MacbethUnmarried as Simm VandeleurThe Skin Game as HornblowerHow He Lied to Her Husband as Teddy BompasThe Skin Game as Mr. HornblowerHindle Wakes as Chris HawthorneFrail Women as The Bookmaker - Jim WillisMoney for Nothing as Sir Henry BlossomCondemned to Death as BantingLove on Wheels as PhilpottsTell Me Tonight as Mayor PateggThe Good Companions as Jess OakroydCash as Edmund GilbertI Was a Spy as BurgomasterSmithy as John SmithChannel Crossing as TrotterMarooned as Tom RobertsFriday the Thirteenth as Mr. WakefieldEarly to Bed as KrugerWaltzes from Vienna as Johann Strauss, the ElderWarn London as Dr. Herman KraussPassing Shadows as David LawrenceJava Head as Jeremy AmmidonThe Admiral's Secret as Admiral FitzporterFather and Son as John BoltonSpring in the Air as FranzThe Bishop Misbehaves as BishopSylvia Scarlett as Henry ScarlettThe Walking Dead as Dr. BeaumontLaburnum Grove as Mr. RadfernAnthony Adverse as John BonnyfeatherAll American Chump as Jeffrey CraneMad Holiday as WilliamsParnell as CampbellSouth Riding as Alfred HugginsA Yank at Oxford as Dean of CardinalPenny Paradise as Joe HigginsCheer Boys Cheer as Edward IronsideThe Earl of Chicago as Munsey, the ButlerAn Englishman's Home as Tom BrownThe Doctor Takes a Wife as Dr. Lionel SterlingPride and Prejudice as Mr. BennetForeign Correspondent as RowleyCheers for Miss Bishop as President CorcoranScotland Yard as Inspector CorkThe Devil and Miss Jones as Hooper One Night in Lisbon as Lord FitzleighCharley's Aunt as Stephen SpettigueA Yank at Eton as Headmaster JustinForever and a Day as StubbsThe Meanest Man in the World as Frederick P. LeggittLassie Come Home as RowlieBetween Two Worlds as ScrubbyThe Keys of the Kingdom as Father Hamish MacNabbDangerous Partners as Albert Richard KingbyBewitched as Dr. BergsonShe Went to the Races as Dr. Homer PeckeOf Human Bondage as AthelnyUndercurrent as Professor 'Dink' HamiltonMiracle on 34th Street as Kris KringleLife with Father as Reverend Dr. LloydThunder in the Valley as Adam MacAdamGreen Dolphin Street as Octavius PatourelApartment for Peggy as Professor Henry BarnesHills of Home as Dr. William MacLureChallenge to Lassie as John TraillA Woman of Distinction as Mark 'J.M.' MiddlecottLouisa as Henry HammondPretty Baby as Cyrus BaxterMister 880 as William 'Skipper' MillerFor Heaven's Sake as ArthurPeking Express as Father Joseph MurraySally and Saint Anne as Grandpa Pat RyanLes Misérables as Bishop CourbetBonzo Goes to College as Ted 'Pop' DrewSomething for the Birds as 'Admiral' Johnnie AdamsMister Scoutmaster as Dr. StoneThe Bigamist as Mr. JordanThe Student Prince as Professor JuttnerThem! as Dr. Harold MedfordThe Trouble with Harry as Captain Albert WilesIt's a Dog's Life as Jeremiah Edward Emmett Augustus NolanCalabuch as Professor Jorge Serra HamiltonAlfred Hitchcock Presents as Joe SaundersRadio appearances
- Audition program for the Suspense radio program.