Already trained in dance and theater, he quit school at age 13 to study
music and painting. By 19 he was a professional ballroom dancer in New
York, and by his mid-twenties he was performing in musicals, dramas on
Broadway and in London, and in silent movies. His first real success in
film came in middle age as the classy villain Waldo Lydecker in
Laura (1944), followed by the part of
Elliott Templeton in
The Razor's Edge (1946) - both
of which won him Oscar nominations. His priggish Mr. Belvedere in a
series of films was supposedly not far removed from his fastidious,
finicky, fussy, abrasive and condescending real-life persona. He was
inseparable from his overbearing mother Maybelle, with whom he lived
until her death at 91, six years before his own death. The recent
success of
Titanic (1997) created brief
interest due his having appeared with
Barbara Stanwyck in the 1953 version of
the story. He is interred at Abbey of the Psalms, Hollywood Memorial
Cemetery (now known as Hollywood Forever).
Satan Never Sleeps(1962)as Father Bovard
Holiday for Lovers(1959)as Robert Dean
The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker(1958)as Mr. Horace Pennypacker
Boy on a Dolphin(1957)as Victor Parmalee
The Man Who Never Was(1956)as Lt. Cmdr. Ewen Montagu
Stars and Stripes Forever(1952)
Belles on Their Toes(1952)
Mr. Belvedere Goes to College(1949)
The Ed Sullivan Show(1948)as Self - Guest
Screen Snapshots, Series 26, No. 10: So This Is 'ollywood(1947)as Self
Buongiorno(2024)as Self
The Best of Hollywood(1999)as Self - Interviewee
Compression(1995)as Self
The Clock(2010)
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills: America's Most Heart-Pounding Movies(2001)as Self
