Godfrey Tearle

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Sir Godfrey Tearle (October 12, 1884 - June 9, 1953) was an American-born actor who portrayed the quintissential Englishman on stage and in films in both England and the United States.

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[edit] Biography

Born Godfrey Seymour Tearle in New York City and raised in England, he was the son of British actor/manager George Osmond Tearle and American actress Marianne Conway, the brother of actor Malcolm Tearle, and the half-brother of silent film star Conway Tearle. In 1893, he made his stage debut as young Prince Richard, Duke of York, in his father's production of Richard III, and in 1908 he appeared in his first film as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet. He became a Shakespearean actor of note, appearing on stage in the title roles of Othello, Macbeth, and Henry V. His theatrical career was interrupted when he joined the Royal Field Artillery for a four-year stint beginning in 1915.

One of Tearle's most memorable screen roles was in Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (1935), in which he portrayed Professor Jordan, a seemingly respectable country squire whose missing finger unmasks him as an enemy agent. He was cast as an RAF bomber pilot in One of Our Aircraft is Missing (1942), an aging World War I veteran in Medal for the General (1944), and as Franklin D. Roosevelt in The Beginning of the End, MGM's 1946 account of the Manhattan Project.

Tearle made his Broadway theatre debut in Carnival in 1919. In his review in the New York Times, Alexander Woolcott noted, "It is difficult to guess why Godfrey Tearle should have selected as the vehicle of his American debut the play called Carnival, which was presented to New York for the first time last evening at the Forty-fourth Street Theatre. It is a spare and unsubstantial piece at best, and the role it offers him is distinctly secondary in importance and opportunity." [1]. Additional Broadway credits include The Fake (1924), The Flashing Stream (1939), and Antony and Cleopatra (1947).

Tearle was knighted for his work on the British stage. He was married three times, to actress Mary Malone from 1909 until their divorce in 1932, to considerably younger screen starlet Stella Freeman from 1932 until her sudden death in 1936, and to Barbara Palmer from 1937 until their divorce. He spent the last few years of his life as the live-in companion of actress Jill Bennett.

[edit] Partial filmography

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ New York Times review of Carnival, December 25, 1919

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