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Lionel Atwill

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Lionel Atwill
Atwill in 1921 as Deburau
Born
Lionel Alfred William Atwill

(1885-03-01)1 March 1885
Croydon, England
Died22 April 1946(1946-04-22) (aged 61)
Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California, U.S.
OccupationActor
Years active1904–1946
Spouses
Phyllis Relph
​
​
(m. 1913; div. 1919)​
​
​
(m. 1920; div. 1928)​
​
​
(m. 1930; div. 1943)​
Mary Paula Pruter
​
(m. 1944)​
Children2

Lionel Alfred William Atwill (1 March 1885 – 22 April 1946) was an English and American stage and screen actor. He began his acting career at the Garrick Theatre. After coming to the United States, he appeared in Broadway plays and Hollywood films. Some of his more significant roles were in Captain Blood (1935), Son of Frankenstein (1939) and To Be or Not to Be (1942).

Life and career

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Lionel Atwill, Alla Nazimova, Amy Veness and Harry Mestayer in the 1918 English-language production of Ibsen's The Wild Duck—one of six leading roles Atwill played on Broadway that season

Atwill was born on 1 March 1885 in Croydon, London, England. He studied architecture before his stage debut at the Garrick Theatre, London, in 1904.[1]

Lionel Atwill and Katharine Cornell in the Broadway production of The Outsider (1924)

He became a star in Broadway theatre by 1918 and made his screen debut in 1919.[2] His Broadway credits include The Lodger (1916), The Silent Witness (1930), Fioretta (1928), The Outsider (1924), Napoleon (1927), The Thief (1926), Slaves All (1926), Beau Gallant (1925), Caesar and Cleopatra (1924), The Outsider (1923), The Comedian (1922), The Grand Duke (1921), Deburau (1920), Tiger! Tiger! (1918), Another Man's Shoes (1918), A Doll's House (1917), Hedda Gabler (1917), The Wild Duck (1917), The Indestructible Wife (1917), L'elevation (1917), and Eve's Daughter (1917).[3]

He acted on the stage in Australia and then became involved in U.S. horror films in the 1930s, including leading roles in Doctor X (1932), The Vampire Bat, Murders in the Zoo and Mystery of the Wax Museum (all 1933), and perhaps most memorably as the one-armed Inspector Krogh in Son of Frankenstein (1939), [1] a role famously parodied by Kenneth Mars in Mel Brooks' 1974 satire Young Frankenstein. He appeared in four subsequent Universal Frankenstein films as well as many other of the studio's beloved chillers.

His other roles include a romantic lead opposite Marlene Dietrich in Josef von Sternberg's The Devil Is a Woman (1935), a crooked insurance investigator in The Wrong Road (1937) for RKO, Dr. James Mortimer in 20th Century Fox's film version of The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939), and Professor Moriarty in the Universal Studios film Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1943).[1] He also had a rare comedy role in Ernst Lubitsch's 1942 classic To Be or Not to Be and that same year menaced Abbott and Costello in Pardon My Sarong.

Signed drawing of Lionel Atwill by Manuel Rosenberg 1924

Personal life

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Lionel Atwill and Elsie Mackay (1922)

Atwill married four times. His first wife was Phyllis Relph; the couple married in 1913 and divorced in 1919. In 1941, their son John Arthur Atwill (born 1914) was killed in action at age 26.[4] Atwill married the actress Elsie Mackay in 1920. He married Louise Cromwell Brooks in 1930 after her divorce from General of the Army Douglas MacArthur; they divorced in 1943.[5] Atwill married Paula Pruter in 1944, and their marriage continued until his death.[1] Their son, Lionel Anthony Atwill, is a retired writer.

In 1942, Atwill was indicted for perjury by a jury investigating the 1941 proceeding of a grand jury relative to the alleged occurrence of a sex orgy at his home. He was given five years probation, but Hollywood producers and other executives blacklisted him for minor criminal activity. He made small film appearances afterward.[6][7]

Atwill died on 22 April 1946, as a result of lung cancer[8] and pneumonia at his home in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles.[1]

Filmography

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e "Lionel Atwill, 61, Noted Actor, Dies. Veteran of Stage and Screen Made London Debut in 1904". The New York Times. 23 April 1946.
  2. ^ "The Rise of Lionel Atwill". The New York Times. 14 April 1918.
  3. ^ "Lionel Atwill". Playbill Vault. Archived from the original on 31 July 2017. Retrieved 31 July 2017.
  4. ^ "Actor Lionel Atwill's Son Killed in British Air Action". Chicago Tribune. 29 April 1941. p. 6. Archived from the original on 30 May 2024. Retrieved 30 May 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ "Lionel Atwill Divorced. Former Louise Cromwell Wins Decree in Washington". The New York Times. 19 June 1943.
  6. ^ "Stage And Screen Actor Indicted". St. Petersburg Times. Associated Press. 1 July 1942.
  7. ^ "Atwill Pleads Guilty. Actor Admits Perjury in Showing of Lewd Pictures". The New York Times. United Press. 25 September 1942.
  8. ^ "Lionel Atwill (1885-1946)". The Penge Heritage Trail.

Further reading

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