 The cadaverous ancient of, say, Laughter in Paradise (d. Mario Zampi, 1951) or The Man in the White Suit (d. Alexander Mackendrick, 1951), which is no doubt how he is remembered by film buffs, was in earlier decades a famous eccentric in London's literary and social circles. Impeccably descended and Marlborough-educated, he delighted in shocking (there are tales of his wearing pearls next to the skin, of his displaying his legs in pale moleskin shorts, of taking his needlework with him to the trenches in 1915), and even going on the stage, as he did professionally in 1909 with Sir George Alexander, was a rebellious act. His stage credits ran to four columns in Who's Who in the Theatre (1957) and he appeared in nearly 60 films. In the US, he was the memorably waspish, epicene host of The Old Dark House (d. James Whale, 1932) and mad scientist Dr Pretorius in The Bride of Frankenstein (d. Whale, 1935). His British credits are full of slyly conceived cameos of prissiness, pedantry and esoteric professionalism: he is the Duc de Berri in Henry V (d. Laurence Olivier, 1944), the hand-writing expert in The Winslow Boy (d. Anthony Asquith, 1948) and the undertaker in Scrooge (d. Brian Desmond Hurst, 1951), putting his mark on the film in the few minutes, which was often all he had to work with. Bibliography
Autobiography: Practically True, 1927
Adventures in Embroidery, 1945. Brian McFarlane, Encyclopedia of British Film
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