# Ronald Colman

Ronald Charles Colman (9 February 1891 – 19 May 1958) was an English-born actor who started his career in theatre and silent film in his native country, then emigrated to the United States where he had a highly successful Hollywood film career. He starred in silent films and successfully transitioned to sound, aided by a distinctive, pleasing voice. He was most popular during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. He received Oscar nominations for Bulldog Drummond (1929), Condemned (1929) and Random Harvest (1942). Colman starred in several classic films, including A Tale of Two Cities (1935), Lost Horizon (1937) and The Prisoner of Zenda (1937). He also played the starring role in the Technicolor classic Kismet (1944), with Marlene Dietrich, which was nominated for four Academy Awards. In 1947, he won an Academy Award for Best Actor and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for the film A Double Life.
Colman was an inaugural recipient of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in motion pictures. He was awarded a second star for his television work.

## Early years

Ronald Charles Colman was born in Richmond, Surrey, England, the third son (his eldest brother died in infancy in 1882) and fifth child of Charles Colman, a silk merchant and mantle manufacturer, and his wife Marjory Read Fraser. His surviving siblings were Gladys, Edith, Eric and Freda. He was a cousin of the Labour politician Grace Colman.
He attended Hadleigh House School in Littlehampton where he discovered that he enjoyed acting, despite his shyness. Later he was educated at Rolandseck School in Ealing under the German-born headmaster Ernst Felix Marx (1858-1942). He intended to study engineering at Cambridge, but his father's sudden death from pneumonia in 1907 made it financially impossible.

## First World War

While working as a clerk with Watts, Watts & Co., Ltd. (managers of the Britain Steamship Company) in the City of London, Colman joined the London Scottish Regiment in 1909 for four years. At the outbreak of the First World War, he quit his job the next day and rejoined his regiment. He was Private No. 2148 with the 1/14th (County of London) Battalion of the London Regiment (London Scottish).
On 15 September 1914, the battalion embarked at Southampton in the SS Winifred and arrived the next day at Le Havre. Six weeks later, the London Scottish were driven to Ypres to reinforce the front. At Ypres, Colman was said to have "had the decidedly unpleasant experience of being buried alive by the explosion of a shell", and was dug out unharmed. Later that day, the battalion was moved to Wytschaete, where it engaged in the Battle of Messines on the next day, 31 October 1914. Colman was seriously wounded in the ankle, which gave him a limp that he sought to hide throughout his acting career: "Disability. Fracture of Ankle (Rt.) In action near Ypres 31-10-14. Man states that when advancing a shell burst near him, and he was thrown heavily injuring his right foot either by the fall or his foot being struck. There is considerable thickening of Rt. ankle. There is also some tenderness and after walking any distance there is pain and lameness." He was treated at the field ambulance and was transferred to England the next day. Colman was admitted to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London where he stayed from 6 to 11 November 1914. Having sufficiently recovered, he was transferred to the 3/14 Battalion of the London Scottish and was sent to Perth, where he did light clerical duty and lived at Strathview (No. 75-77), Muirton Place. About half a year later, on 6 May 1915, he was declared "No longer fit physically for war service" and discharged.
His military character was given as "Very good. Honest, sober and trustworthy." Colman was awarded a pension as well as the Victory Medal, the British War Medal, the 1914 Star with clasps and roses and the Silver War Badge. In 1928 he was made an honorary life member of the London Scottish.
Fellow Hollywood actors Claude Rains, Herbert Marshall, Cedric Hardwicke, and Basil Rathbone all saw service with the London Scottish in the war.

## Career
### Concert parties and amateur stage

About the same time when he joined the London Scottish, Colman took to the stage and soon established himself as a member of the performing community in Ealing. Between 1909 and 1914, he appeared solo and with various concert parties and amateur dramatics groups. He began with banjo solos at benefit concerts and two years later joined the short-lived Pierrot troupes The Tangerines and The Summer ‘Uns, who only had one performance. In 1912, while on the Isle of Wight, he and some friends formed The Mad Medicos, who performed under his direction. A part of this troupe then became The Popinjays, again under Colman’s direction, until George Denby (c. 1889-1951) took over. Besides banjo solos and duets, Colman’s repertoire included songs and duets like „Two Little Sausages“ (Lionel Monckton) and musical monologues, recitals of poems like The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God, funny stories and above all character sketches from Dickens such as Uriah Heep, John Brodie and Martin Chuzzlewit. At „An Evening With Dickens“, he played Charles Darnay in three scenes from A Tale of Two Cities. He also staged three pieces of his own: the duologues "My Pierrot" and "A Knotty Problem" and the miniature revue "Come Inside". When Colman rejoined the Popinjays in July 1916 for performances at the Pavilion in Derby, between theatre engagements, there is a marked change in his repertoire: The character sketch is now of a Chelsea Pensioner, and he recites Spotty, a Tale of the Trenches.
Besides these performances, Colman also appeared on the amateur stage. He made his debut as Freddy Fitzfoodle in Rich Miss Rustle at Victoria Hall, Ealing, on 11 November 1909. In 1910 followed the one-act plays Barbara and Lights Out and Spoiling the Broth. In October and November of the same year, he sang and danced as Bill Bobstay in H.M.S. Pinafore with the West Middlesex Operatic Society. In 1911 he appeared in the farcical comedy Jane and in the next year as Samson Quayle in A Tight Corner. Around this time Colman joined the Bancroft Dramatic Club, which had been founded in 1892 by Sir Squire Bancroft and performed mainly at the King’s Hall Theatre on the premises of the National Sporting Club in Covent Garden. Among its vice presidents were actors like George Alexander, Johnston Forbes-Robertson and Ellen Terry. With the Bancroft D. C., Colman appeared in six plays between 1911 and 1914: The Admirable Crichton, Priscilla Runs Away, The Dancing Girl, The Passing of the Third Floor Back, Fanny’s First Play, and Sowing the Wind. He also performed in Mr. Steinman’s Corner and as Douglas Cattermole in The Private Secretary with Vivian Parrott’s Amateur Dramatic Society.

### Theatre

Colman had sufficiently recovered from his wartime injuries to appear at the London Coliseum on 19 June 1916 as Rahmat Sheikh in The Maharani of Arakan, with Lena Ashwell, at the Playhouse in December that year as Stephen Weatherbee in the Charles Goddard/Paul Dickey play The Misleading Lady, and at the Court Theatre in March 1917 as Webber in Partnership. At the same theatre, the following year he appeared in Eugène Brieux's Damaged Goods. At the Ambassadors Theatre in February 1918, he played George Lubin in The Little Brother. In 1918, he toured the UK as David Goldsmith in The Bubble and as Wilfred Carpenter in The Live Wire.
In 1920, Colman went to America and toured with Robert Warwick in The Dauntless Three and subsequently toured with Fay Bainter in East Is West. He married his first wife, Thelma Raye, in 1920; they divorced in 1934. At the Booth Theatre in New York City in January 1921, he played the Temple Priest in William Archer's play The Green Goddess. With George Arliss at the 39th Street Theatre in August 1921, he appeared as Charles in The Nightcap. In September 1922, he had great success as Alain Sergyll at the Empire Theatre in New York City in La Tendresse, which was to be his final stage work.

### Film

Colman had first appeared in films in Britain in 1917 and 1919 for director Cecil Hepworth. He subsequently acted for the old Broadwest Film Company in Snow in the Desert. While he was on stage in New York City in La Tendresse, director Henry King saw him and engaged him as the leading man in the 1923 film The White Sister, opposite Lillian Gish. He was an immediate success. Thereafter, Colman virtually abandoned the stage for film.
He became a very popular silent film star in both romantic and adventure films, among them The Dark Angel (1925), Stella Dallas (1926), Beau Geste (1926), and The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926). His dark hair and eyes and his athletic and riding ability (he did most of his own stunts until late in his career) led reviewers to describe him as a "Valentino type". He was often cast in similar, exotic roles. Towards the end of the silent era, Colman was teamed with Hungarian actress Vilma Bánky under Samuel Goldwyn; the two were a popular film team, rivalling Greta Garbo and John Gilbert.
Although he was a huge success in silent films, he was unable to capitalise on one of his chief assets until the advent of the talking picture – "his beautifully modulated and cultured voice" also described as "a bewitching, finely modulated, resonant voice". Colman was often viewed as a suave English gentleman, whose voice embodied chivalry and mirrored the image of a "stereotypical English gentleman". Commenting on Colman's appeal, English film critic David Shipman stated that Colman was "the dream lover – calm, dignified, trustworthy. Although he was a lithe figure in adventure stories, his glamour – which was genuine – came from his respectability; he was an aristocratic figure, without being aloof."
His first major talkie success was in 1930, when he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performances in Condemned and Bulldog Drummond. He thereafter appeared in a number of notable films: Raffles in 1930, Clive of India and A Tale of Two Cities in 1935, Under Two Flags in 1936, The Prisoner of Zenda and Lost Horizon in 1937, If I Were King in 1938, and Random Harvest and The Talk of the Town in 1942. He won the Best Actor Oscar in 1948 for A Double Life. He next starred in a screwball comedy, 1950's Champagne for Caesar.
At the time of his death, Colman was contracted by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for the lead role in Village of the Damned. After Colman's death, however, the film transferred production from MGM Studios in Culver City, California to MGM-British Studios in Borehamwood, England. George Sanders, who married Colman's widow, Benita Hume, was cast in the role intended for Colman.

### Fame

Colman has been mentioned in many novels, but he is specifically mentioned in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man because of his charming, well-known voice. The main character of this novel says that he wishes he could have a voice like Colman's because it is charming, and relates the voice to that of a gentleman or a man from Esquire magazine. Colman was indeed very well known for his voice. Encyclopædia Britannica says that Colman had a "resonant, mellifluous speaking voice with a unique, pleasing timbre". Along with his charming voice, Colman had a very confident performing manner that helped make him a major star of sound films.

### Radio and television

As early as 1942, Colman joined forces with several other Hollywood luminaries to inaugurate international broadcasts by the CBS radio network over La Cadena de las Americas (The Network of the Americas) under the supervision of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs chaired by Nelson Rockefeller. In the process, he contributed substantially to the implementation of President Franklin Roosevelt's cultural diplomacy initiatives throughout South America during World War II.
Colman's vocal talents contributed to National Broadcasting Company programming on D-Day, 6 June 1944. On that day, Colman read "Poem and Prayer for an Invading Army" written by Edna St. Vincent Millay for exclusive radio use by NBC.
Beginning in 1945, Colman made many guest appearances on The Jack Benny Program on radio, alongside his second wife, stage and screen actress Benita Hume, whom he married in 1938. Their comedy work as Benny's perpetually exasperated next-door neighbors led to their own radio comedy The Halls of Ivy from 1950 to 1952, created by Fibber McGee & Molly mastermind Don Quinn, on which the Colmans played the literate, charming president of a middle American college and his former-actress wife. Listeners were surprised to discover that the episode of 24 January 1951, "The Goya Bequest" – a story examining the bequest of a Goya painting that was suspected of being a fraud hyped by its late owner to avoid paying customs duties when bringing it to the United States – was written by Colman himself, who poked fun at his accomplishment while taking a rare turn giving the evening's credits at the show's conclusion.
The Halls of Ivy ran on NBC radio from 1950 to 1952; an adaptation of the same name was on CBS television for the 1954–55 season.
Colman was also the host and occasional star of the syndicated anthology Favorite Story (1946–49). Of note was his narration and portrayal of Scrooge in a 1948 adaptation of A Christmas Carol.

## Death

In 1957, Colman had surgery for a lung infection, and suffered from ill health afterwards. He was hospitalized and died on 19 May 1958, aged 67, from acute emphysema in Santa Barbara, California, and was interred in the Santa Barbara Cemetery. He had a daughter, Juliet Benita (born 1944), with his second wife, Benita Hume.

## Awards, honours and legacy

Colman was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Actor. At the 3rd Academy Awards ceremony he received a single nomination for his work in two films; Bulldog Drummond (1929) and Condemned (1929). He was nominated again for Random Harvest (1942), before winning for A Double Life (1947), in which he played the role of Anthony John, an actor playing Othello who comes to identify with the character. He also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in 1947 for A Double Life. In 2002, Colman's Oscar statuette was sold at auction by Christie's for US$174,500.
Colman was a recipient of the George Eastman Award, given by George Eastman House for distinguished contribution to the art of film.
Colman has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles, one for motion pictures at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard and one for television at 1623 Vine Street.
He is the subject of a biography written by his daughter Juliet Benita Colman in 1975: Ronald Colman: A Very Private Person.
The Dublin slang term "ronnie", referring to a moustache, derives from Colman's thin moustache.

## Filmography

Radio programmes :
| Year | Program | Episode/source |
| 1945 | Suspense | "August Heat" |
| 1945 | Suspense | "The Dunwich Horror" |
| 1946 | Academy Award | Lost Horizon |
| 1946 | Encore Theatre | Yellowjack |
| 1952 | Lux Radio Theatre | Les Misérables |
| 1953 | Suspense | Vision of Death |