Ronald Colman
|
Ronald Colman in Lost Horizon |
Ronald Colman (
9 February,
1891 –
19 May,
1958) was an English actor. Born in
Richmond,
Surrey,
England, Colman discovered acting while at school. He intended to attend
Cambridge University to study
engineering, but his father's death put an end to that. He served in
World War I, where he was seriously wounded at the
Battle of Messines.
Following the war, he began to appear on the
London stage. In 1922, he appeared on
Broadway in the hit play
La Tendresse. Director Henry King saw him, and cast him in the 1923 film,
The White Sister, opposite
Lillian Gish. He became a very popular
silent film star in both romantic and adventure films. He successfully made the transition to "talkies" because of his elegant and sonorous speaking voice. His first major talkie success was in 1930, when he was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Actor for two roles —
Condemned and
Bulldog Drummond. He appeared in
The Prisoner of Zenda and
Lost Horizon in 1937,
If I Were King in 1938, and
The Talk of the Town in 1941. He won the
Oscar in 1948 for
A Double Life.Beginning in 1945, Colman made many guest appearances on
The Jack Benny Program on radio, alongside his wife, Benita Hume. Their comedy work as Benny's next-door neighbors led to their own
radio comedy,
The Halls of Ivy from 1950 to 1952; the series transitioned to
television in 1954. They had one daughter, Juliet.
Ronald Colman died on
19 May,
1958, aged 67, from a lung infection in
Santa Barbara, California and was interred in the Santa Barbara Cemetery.
He has two stars on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for
motion pictures at 6801 Hollywood Blvd. and one for
television at 1625 Vine Street.
*1948 Won for
A Double Life*1943 Nominated for
Random Harvest*1930 Nominated for
Bulldog Drummond*1930 Nominated for
Condemned*
Find-A-Grave profile for Ronald Colman
