Sir Cedric Webster Hardwicke (19 February 1893 – 6 August 1964) was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned nearly 50 years. His theatre work included notable performances in productions of the plays of Shakespeare and Shaw, and his film work included leading roles in several adapted literary classics.
Hardwicke enlisted at the outbreak of the First World War. He served with the London Scottish[3] from 1914 to 1921 as an officer in the Judge Advocate's branch of the British Army in France.[1] He was one of the last members of the British Expeditionary Force to leave France. According to the Daily Mirror 1 January 1934, Hardwicke was one of the officers who escorted The Unknown Warrior from France.
Hardwicke made his first appearance on stage at the Lyceum Theatre, London in 1912 during the run of Frederick Melville's melodrama The Monk and the Woman, when he took over the part of Brother John.[2] During this year, he was at Her Majesty's Theatre understudying, and subsequently appeared at the Garrick Theatre in Charles Klein's play Find the Woman, and Trust the People.[2] In 1913, he joined Benson's Company and toured in the provinces, South Africa, and Rhodesia.[2] During 1914 he toured with Miss Darragh (Letitia Marion Dallas, d. 1917) in Laurence Irving's play The Unwritten Law, and he appeared at the Old Vic in 1914 as Malcolm in Macbeth, Tranio in The Taming of the Shrew, the gravedigger in Hamlet, and other roles.[2]
After serving in the British Army in WWI, he resumed his acting career. In January 1922, he joined the Birmingham Repertory Company, playing a range of parts from the drooping young lover Faulkland in The Rivals to the roistering Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night.[2]
He played many classical roles on stage, appearing at London's top theatres, making his name on the stage performing works by George Bernard Shaw, who said that Hardwicke was his fifth favourite actor after the four Marx Brothers. As one of the leading Shavian actors of his generation, Hardwicke starred in Caesar and Cleopatra, Pygmalion, The Apple Cart, Candida, Too True to Be Good, and Don Juan in Hell, making such an impression that at the age of 41 he became the youngest actor to be knighted[4] (this occurred in the 1934 New Year's Honours; Laurence Olivier subsequently took the record in 1947 when he was knighted at the age of 40). Other stage successes included The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse, Antigone and A Majority of One, winning a Tony Award nomination for his performance as a Japanese diplomat.[5]
In December 1935, Hardwicke was elected Rede Lecturer to Cambridge University for 1936, he took as his subject "The Drama Tomorrow".[7] In the late 1930s, he moved to the U.S., initially for film work. In the early 1940s, he continued his stage career on tours and in New York.[7]
In 1944, Hardwicke returned to Britain, again touring, and reappeared on the London stage, at the Westminster Theatre, on 29 March 1945, as Richard Varwell in a revival of Eden and Adelaide Phillpotts' comedy Yellow Sands, and subsequently toured in this on the continent. He returned to America late in 1945 and appeared with Ethel Barrymore in December in a revival of Shaw's Pygmalion, and continued on the New York stage the following year. In 1946, he starred opposite Katharine Cornell as King Creon in her production of Jean Anouilh's adaptation of the Greek tragedy Antigone.[5][8]
In 1948, he joined the Old Vic Company at the New Theatre to play Sir Toby Belch, Doctor Faustus, and Gaev in The Cherry Orchard, but according to critic and biographer W.A. Darlington, "it was about this time that he confessed to a friend that he was finding the competition in London too hot for him", and he moved permanently to the U.S.[7] In 1951–52, he appeared on Broadway in Shaw's Don Juan in Hell with Agnes Moorehead, Charles Boyer and Charles Laughton.[5]
He appeared in a 1956 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents titled Wet Saturday in which he portrayed Mr. Princey, an aristocratic gentleman who tries to cover up a murder to avoid public scandal. On 6 March 1958, he guest-starred on the TV series The Ford Show starring Tennessee Ernie Ford.[10]
In 1928, he married the English actress Helena Pickard.[6] They divorced in 1948; their son was actor Edward Hardwicke. His second marriage, which produced a son, Michael, and likewise ended in divorce, was to actress, Mary Scott (1921–2009), from 1950 to 1961.[citation needed][12]
Hardwicke left two volumes of memoirs: Let's Pretend: Recollections and Reflections of a Lucky Actor, 1932 and A Victorian in Orbit: as told to James Brough, 1962.[1] He is commemorated by a sculpture by Tim Tolkien at Lye, commissioned by the Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council. The memorial takes the form of a giant filmstrip, the illuminated cut metal panels illustrating scenes from some of Hardwicke's better-known roles, which include The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Things to Come, and The Ghost of Frankenstein. Unveiled in November 2005, it is located at Lye Cross where he lived as a child. Thorns School and Community College in neighbouring Quarry Bank has renamed its drama theatre in his honour as the Hardwicke Theatre.[16]
Twilight Zone (November 14,1963) (Season 5 Episode 8: "Uncle Simon") as Uncle Simon
The Pumpkin Eater (1964) as Mr. James - Jo's father (final film role)
The Outer Limits (1964) as Colas in "The Forms of Things Unknown"
Related Research Articles
Charles Laughton was a British-American actor. He was trained in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and first appeared professionally on the stage in 1926. In 1927, he was cast in a play with his future wife Elsa Lanchester, with whom he lived and worked until his death.
Elsa Sullivan Lanchester was a British actress with a long career in theatre, film and television.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a 1939 American romantic drama film starring Charles Laughton and Maureen O'Hara. Directed by William Dieterle and produced by Pandro S. Berman, the film is based on Victor Hugo's 1831 novel. The film is also noted for being the first film ever shown at the Cannes Film Festival before the rest of the festival was cancelled due to the start of World War II.
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 (1947), 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 (1950). He is also remembered for his appearances in four films directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
James Donald was a Scottish actor. Tall and thin, he specialised in playing authority figures, particularly military doctors.
Colin Glenn Clive was a British stage and screen actor. His most memorable role was Henry Frankenstein, the creator of the monster, in the 1931 film Frankenstein and its 1935 sequel, Bride of Frankenstein.
Cecil Parker was an English actor with a distinctively husky voice, who usually played supporting roles, often characters with a supercilious demeanour, in his 91 films made between 1928 and 1969.
Ernest Frederic Graham Thesiger, CBE was an English stage and film actor. He is noted for his performance as Doctor Septimus Pretorius in James Whale's film Bride of Frankenstein (1935).
Charles Henry Pywell Daniell was an English actor who had a long career in the United States on stage and in cinema. He came to prominence for his portrayal of villainous roles in films such as Camille (1936), The Great Dictator (1940), Holiday (1938) and The Sea Hawk (1940). Daniell was given few opportunities to play sympathetic or 'good guy' roles; an exception was his portrayal of Franz Liszt in the biographical film of Robert and Clara Schumann, Song of Love (1947). His name is sometimes spelled "Daniel".
George Zucco was a British character actor who appeared in plays and 96 films, mostly American-made, during a career spanning over two decades, from the 1920s to 1951. In his films, he often played a suave villain, a member of nobility, or a mad doctor.
Henry Stephenson was a British actor. He generally portrayed amiable and wise gentlemen in many films of the 1930s and 1940s. Among his roles were Sir Joseph Banks in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and Mr. Brownlow in Oliver Twist (1948).
Harold George Bryant Davenport was an American film and stage actor who worked in show business from the age of six until his death. After a long and prolific Broadway career, he came to Hollywood in the 1930s, where he often played grandfathers, judges, doctors, and ministers. His roles include Dr. Meade in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Grandpa in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). Bette Davis once called Davenport "without a doubt [. . .] the greatest character actor of all time."
Ronald Launcelot Squire was an English character actor.
John Stuart was born to Scottish parents, and was a very popular leading man in British silent films in the 1920s. He successfully made the transition to talking pictures in the 1930s and his film career went on to span almost six decades. He appeared in 172 films, 123 stage plays, and 103 television plays and series.
Brandon Hurst was an English stage and film actor.
Holmes Herbert was an English character actor who appeared in Hollywood films from 1915 to 1952, often as a British gentleman.
Dennis Hoey was a British film and stage actor, best remembered for playing Inspector Lestrade in six films of Universal's Sherlock Holmes series.
Frederick Piper was an English actor of stage and screen who appeared in over 80 films and many television productions in a career spanning over 40 years. Piper studied drama under Elsie Fogerty at the Central School of Speech and Drama, then based at the Royal Albert Hall, London.
Arthur Gould-Porter was an English actor who appeared in films and on television and stage. His film and TV career spanned from 1942 to 1977, and although mainly a character actor he is remembered for his part as Captain Greer in Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) and for his reoccurring role as Ravenswood the butler in The Beverley Hillbillies. He was sometimes credited as Arthur E. Gould-Porter and A. E. Gould-Porter.
Budd Nathan Fine was an American character actor of the silent and sound film eras. Born Budd Nathan Fine on September 10, 1894, in Hartford Connecticut, Fine served in the US Army during World War I, during which he was awarded a Purple Heart.
1 2 "Deaths". The Times. No.49962, col D. 22 September 1944. p.7.
1 2 3 W. A. Darlington, W. A. profile, rev. K.D. Reynolds, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2008, accessed 20 March 2013 (subscription or UK public library membership required)
↑ Mosel, "Leading Lady: The World and Theatre of Katharine Cornell"
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
