Tom Conway
Tom Conway was a British film, television, and radio actor. He is remembered for playing suave adventurer The Falcon in a series of 1940s films; and his appearances in three horror films produced by Val Lewton, Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, and The Seventh Victim. He was also known for playing several prominent fictional detectives on screen and radio, including Sherlock Holmes, The Saint, Bulldog Drummond, and Mark Saber.
Early life
Conway was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia. His younger brother was actor George Sanders. The family moved from Russia to Britain when Tom was thirteen. He was educated at Brighton College then moved to Africa to find work. He returned to England, worked as a glass salesman, then became interested in acting.Career
England
He started by appearing in amateur theatre, then joined a repertory company for a year and a half. After this he appeared in touring productions of plays like Dangerous Corner, Private Lives, and By Candlelight, as well as acting on radio. Then Conway's brother George suggested Tom join him in Hollywood.MGM
In May 1940 it was announced Tom had signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. During this time, he changed his last name from Sanders to Conway. He had small roles in Waterloo Bridge, with only his voice heard, Sky Murder with Walter Pidgeon, and The Wild Man of Borneo. He had a bigger part in The Trial of Mary Dugan with Robert Young, then was back to small parts in Free and Easy, The Bad Man with Wallace Beery and Lionel Barrymore, The People vs. Dr. Kildare with Lew Ayres and Lionel Barrymore, and Lady Be Good with Eleanor Powell and Red Skelton.Conway played villains in Tarzan's Secret Treasure with Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan, Mr. and Mrs. North with Gracie Allen, and Rio Rita with Abbott and Costello. He was a murder suspect in Grand Central Murder with Van Heflin and had an uncredited bit in Mrs. Miniver with Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon.
RKO: The Falcon and Val Lewton
At RKO Radio Pictures, Conway's brother George Sanders had starred in three popular "B" movies as The Falcon, eligible man-about-town and amateur detective, constantly being accused of crimes and using his wits to trap the guilty parties and clear his name. Sanders had tired of the role, so the pencil-mustached Conway took over as The Falcon's Brother, co-starring with Sanders. Producer Maurice Geraghty later revealed that RKO executives recruited Conway so they could induce Sanders to make one more Falcon picture, after which the series would end. "So it was astonishing to them when Tom Conway caught on right away and carried the series on -- even outgrossing the pictures George had made." RKO signed Tom Conway to a long-term contract.Conway followed this success with an excellent role in Cat People, the first of producer Val Lewton's well remembered horror cycle. He had the male lead in a second film for Lewton, I Walked with a Zombie, now regarded as a horror classic. Conway was top-billed in Lewton's The Seventh Victim playing the same role, psychiatrist Dr. Louis Judd, from Cat People.
Between his Falcon and Val Lewton assignments, RKO starred Conway in B mysteries: A Night of Adventure, Two O'Clock Courage, and Criminal Court.
Conway was borrowed by United Artists for Whistle Stop, in which he supported George Raft, Ava Gardner, and Victor McLaglen. In June 1946, Conway obtained a release from his RKO contract. He had already left the studio when his last RKO films were released: The Falcon's Alibi, Criminal Court, and The Falcon's Adventure.
Freelance actor
In April 1943 Conway had said, "What I should really like to play is sophisticated comedy." Conway wasted no time in pursuing that goal; he had just left RKO, and by the first week of July he was already working in the farce comedy Strange Bedfellows, produced by Andrew L. Stone for United Artists release. The Eddie Bracken-Priscilla Lane film was ultimately released as Fun on a Weekend.It appeared that Tom Conway would find a new home at the new Eagle-Lion studio, where Bryan Foy, formerly a Warner Bros. executive, was now in charge of production. In September 1946 Eagle-Lion announced that former RKO producer Lee Marcus was preparing a new comedy, His Wedding Night, with Conway joining Dennis O'Keefe and Ann Richards as the leading players. O’Keefe dropped out and was replaced by Franchot Tone; the film went into production in November 1946 as Amy Comes Across, changed to Lost Honeymoon when released in 1947.
In January 1947 Eagle-Lion was preparing a film version of an upcoming novel. Showmen’s Trade Review reported, "Tom Conway, designated for star build-up by Bryan Foy, has been cast for one of the leading roles in Out of the Blue." The plan to star Conway fell through, and he was replaced by former Warner star George Brent. Like Conway, Brent was a major-studio star now accepting featured roles. Conway stayed with Eagle-Lion and was featured in Repeat Performance.
On radio, Conway played Sherlock Holmes during the 1946–1947 season of The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, following Basil Rathbone's departure from the series. In spite of a similarly refined English accent, Conway was not as well received as Rathbone by audiences; he played Holmes for only one season.
Meanwhile Tom Conway couldn't find a berth at a major studio, but he wasn't alone; dozens of actors were underemployed when the majors committed to make fewer but more expensive pictures, with lower-budget productions sharply curtailed. Conway continued to work for independent producers. He signed with Artists Alliance Productions, an ambitious but short-lived independent, to appear in One Touch of Venus, released in 1948 by Universal. Artists Alliance was headed by silent-screen star Mary Pickford and producer-promoter Lester Cowan; their only other production was the Marx Brothers' last film, Love Happy.
Bernard Small, the son of independent producer Edward Small, had secured the film rights to the Bulldog Drummond character and made two Drummond mysteries for Columbia Pictures release. In 1948, he moved the franchise to his father's Reliance Pictures, an independent company distributing through Fox, and hired Tom Conway to play Bulldog Drummond in The Challenge and 13 Lead Soldiers. Independent producer Sam Baerwitz, cast Conway in low-budget crime stories released by Fox; The Checkered Coat, Bungalow 13, I Cheated the Law, and The Great Plane Robbery.
Into the 1950s and early 1960s
When George Sanders married Zsa Zsa Gabor, Tom Conway joined the wedding party on April Fool's Day, 1949. She recalled in her memoir, "With an unexpected generosity, George chartered a plane and flew the wedding party . His brother, Tom Conway, as warm and outgoing as George was cool and restrained, was best man, and came on the plane with a shotgun over his shoulder. 'Just in case the old boy gets cold feet,' he said." Conway appeared on the early television panel show Bachelor's Haven, an advice-to-the-lovelorn forum patterned after the successful New York-based series Leave It to the Girls. He recruited his sister-in-law Zsa Zsa to join him on the program.Beginning in May 1951, Tom Conway starred in the radio mystery series The Saint, portrayed by Sanders on film a decade earlier. Conway succeeded Edgar Barrier, Brian Aherne, and Vincent Price in the leading role, and was the last of the radio Saints, performing in 22 weekly episodes.
Feature films
Back in the movie studios, Conway had supporting parts in Painting the Clouds with Sunshine and Bride of the Gorilla. Apart from a lead in Confidence Girl, he played supporting roles: Tarzan and the She-Devil, Paris Model, and Prince Valiant. He also lent his smooth speaking voice to Walt Disney's Peter Pan, as the film's narrator.Conway went to England to star as Berkeley Gray's private detective Norman Conquest in Park Plaza 605, and Blood Orange. He also had leads in the British Barbados Quest, Breakaway, and The Last Man to Hang. In 1956, brothers Tom Conway and George Sanders appeared in the film Death of a Scoundrel, with the star Sanders killing supporting player Conway. Conway's last British film was Operation Murder.
In America, Conway co-starred in The She-Creature and Voodoo Woman. He was featured in The Atomic Submarine, and 12 to the Moon. He provided his voice for Disney's 101 Dalmatians as a quizmaster in What's My Crime?—a parody of the game show What's My Line?—and as a collie that offers the dalmatians shelter in a barn, later guiding them home. His wife at the time, British actress Queenie Leonard, voiced a cow in the barn. His final feature-film assignment was the all-star comedy What a Way to Go!.
Television
From 1951 to 1954, Conway played debonair British police detective Mark Saber in Inspector Mark Saber – Homicide Detective, produced by Roland D. Reed. In 1957, the series resumed on NBC, now filmed in England and renamed Saber of London, with Donald Gray in the title role.Conway performed in the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "The Glass Eye" as Max Collodi, receiving critical praise. He had a supporting role in The Betty Hutton Show television series. In 1964 he appeared on the top-rated Perry Mason series in "The Case of the Simple Simon," playing Guy Penrose, leading actor in a traveling repertory company.
Another actor made his network-television debut as "Tom Conway" on The Steve Allen Show in 1961, while the established actor Tom Conway was still working. To avoid confusion, the younger Tom Conway changed his professional name to Tim Conway in June 1962. As late as 1966 the two actors were being confused; a November 1966 broadcast of The Red Skelton Show was advertised with Tom Conway as the guest star, but the program actually featured Tim Conway.