John Loder (born William John Muir Lowe; 3 January 1898 – 26 December 1988) was established as a British film actor in Germany and Britain before migrating to the United States in 1928 for work in the new talkies. He worked in Hollywood for two periods, becoming an American citizen in 1947. After living also in Argentina, he became a naturalized British citizen in 1959.
Loder was born in 1898 in Knightsbridge, London.[1] His father was W. H. M. Lowe, a British career army officer who achieved the rank of general. Patrick Pearse, the leader of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin, Ireland, surrendered to him.[2] Both were present at the surrender.[3] His mother was Frances Broster Johnson (née de Salvo; 1857–1942), daughter of Francesco de Salvo of Palermo, Sicily and his English wife Emma Broster.[4] Frances was widowed when she married Lowe; she had been married to the late Captain Robert Harry Johnson of the 64th Foot Regiment. Loder had a younger sister, Elizabeth (born in 1900), who would later become a nun. He had also three older half-siblings from his mother's first marriage: Harry Cecil Johnson (1877–1915), Dorothy Johnson (1880–1971) and Gladys Frances McGrath (née Johnson; formerly Kingsmill; 1881-?).
Loder followed his father into the army, being commissioned into 15th Hussars as a second lieutenant on 17 March 1915, during the First World War.[5] He was immediately sent to Gallipoli, where he served until the British withdrawal.
From 21 April until early May 1916, Loder was stationed in Ireland, serving as his father's ADC, and where they both witnessed the surrender of the leaders of the Easter Rising.
He rejoined his regiment in Rouen, France, in May 1916, and was engaged in the 1916 Battle of the Somme.
He was taken prisoner by the Germans on 21 March 1918 at the village of Roisel and transported to Le Cateau gaol and then by train to the first of several prisoner-of-war camps, Rastatt, in Baden, Germany.[6][7]
Leaving the cavalry, Loder went into business with a German friend, Walter Becker, establishing a pickle factory in Potsdam. Later he began to develop an interest in acting. He appeared at the British Theatre Guild in Berlin and enjoyed success in productions of The Last of Mrs Cheyney, which had opened in London in 1925, and Loyalties.[8]
Loder left Germany to return briefly to the United Kingdom. He had a support role in The First Born (1928), playing Madeleine Carroll's love interest. That year he sailed to the United States on the SSÎle de France, bound for Hollywood to try his luck in the new medium of "talkies".
Loder returned to Britain. He starred in a comedy for Herbert Wilcox, Money Means Nothing (1932), and was reunited with Korda in Wedding Rehearsal (1933).
After Britain entered the Second World War, Loder returned to the United States. He coasted into a career in B movie roles, usually playing upper-crust characters. He also played one role onstage on Broadway, in 1947's For Love or Money opposite June Lockhart.
In the early 1940s, Loder was host of Silver Theater, a dramatic anthology on CBS radio.[15] He also starred in the programme's 11 June 1944 episode.[16]
He supported in an A film, One More Tomorrow (1946) and appeared opposite then-wife Hedy Lamarr in Dishonored Lady (1947). Loder then appeared in a minor Broadway hit in For Love or Money (1947–48). Around this time he began to focus increasingly on business as opposed to acting.[17]
He was unmarried when he fathered his first son.[18] The boy followed his father to Eton and served in the Grenadier Guards. He later became a theatrical and literary agent, and was married three times. His last marriage was to British actress Hilary Tindall (1938–1992). She played Ann Hammond in the 1970s BBC TV series The Brothers.[19]
He first married French star Micheline Cheirel (married 1936–41 – they had one daughter together, who later married Paul Meurisse).
Secondly, he wed Austrian-American actress Hedy Lamarr in the United States (married 1943–47). He and Lamarr had three children together: James Markey Loder (born 1939), when Lamarr was married to Gene Markey; they adopted this boy and she said he was unrelated; Loder adopted him after their marriage;[21] Denise (born 1945) and Anthony Loder (born 1947). Documentation found after Lamarr's death was reported in 2001 to reveal that James was born to Lamarr and Loder before their marriage.[22]
Loder's other wives were Sophie Kabel, Evelyn Auff Mordt, and finally, in 1958, the heiress Alba Julia Lagomarsino of Argentina. After their marriage, he lived on her 25,000-acre cattle ranch and spent much time at the Jockey Club in Buenos Aires.[23]
After they divorced in 1972, Loder returned to London.[24] He resided for some years in a house opposite Harrods department store.
In 1947, Loder had become an American citizen. In 1959, he became a naturalised citizen of the United Kingdom. Given his varied residencies, he had been considered of "uncertain nationality" by that time.[25]
Later years
He published his autobiography, Hollywood Hussar, in 1977. Loder's general health deteriorated in his eighties, and he was admitted in 1982 to the Distressed Gentlefolks Aid Association's Nursing Home in Vicarage Gate, Kensington. He went weekly by taxi to his London club, 'Bucks', in Mayfair, for luncheon. He died in London, aged 90, in 1988.[26]
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↑ "BRITISH ACTOR". The Daily News. Vol.XLIX, no.17, 111. Western Australia. 7 March 1930. p.10 (HOME FINAL EDITION). Retrieved 17 September 2017– via National Library of Australia.
↑ "JOHN LODER'S CHREEB". The Daily News. Vol.LV, no.18, 847. Western Australia. 15 August 1935. p.10 (CITY FINAL). Retrieved 17 September 2017– via National Library of Australia.
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