Miles Mander

Miles Mander (born Lionel Henry Mander; 14 May 1888 – 8 February 1946), was an English character actor of the early Hollywood cinema, also a film director and producer, and a playwright and novelist. He was sometimes credited as Luther Miles.
Early life
Miles Mander was the second son of Theodore Mander, builder of Wightwick Manor, of the prominent Mander family, industrialists and public servants of Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England. He was the younger brother of Geoffrey Mander, the Liberal Member of Parliament. He was educated at Harrow School, Middlesex (The Grove House 1901- Easter 1903), Loretto School (in Canada) and McGill University in Montreal.
He soon broke away from the predictable mould of business and philanthropy. He was an early aviator, a pioneer pilot, flying his Louis Blériot at Pau in 1909 and at the first all-British aviation meeting in July 1910. He won the cup for the first official flight at Brooklands in 1910, and acquired and built Hendon Aerodrome with Claude Grahame-White. He started free ballooning in 1912 and qualified as a pilot, gaining his Royal Aero Club certificate no. 31 on 17 June 1913. He served as a captain in the Royal Army Service Corps in World War I, 1915–19. He spent his twenties in New Zealand farming sheep, with his uncle, Martin Mander.
Film career
Miles Mander entered the British film industry as a writer, producer, and actor, often working with Adrian Brunel. In 1925, he appeared in two Gainsborough productions: The Prude's Fall (1925) and The Pleasure Garden (1926). The former was Alfred Hitchcock's last film as an assistant director to Graham Cutts and the latter was Hitchcock's directorial debut. In 1926–7 he made a series of pioneering sound films. Later he collaborated with Alma Reville, Hitchcock's wife, on the script of The First Born (1928), his feature debut as director, in which he co-starred with Madeleine Carroll. Carroll reappeared in his third film, Fascination (1931).
Mander is better remembered for his character portrayals of oily villains, many of them English gentlemen or upper crust cads – such as Cardinal Richelieu in the musical film The Three Musketeers (1939), a spoof in which the Ritz Brothers played lackeys who substituted for the real Musketeers. In his Hollywood debut, he had portrayed King Louis XIII in the much more serious 1935 version of that same Alexandre Dumas, père classic. One of his meatiest performances came as a dual role in the 1939 serial Daredevils of the Red Circle, in which he played both a kindly industrialist and the ruthless villain who impersonates him (played "out of makeup" by Charles Middleton). Other famous film credits included Wuthering Heights (1939) with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, in which he played Mr. Lockwood, the new tenant at the Grange, who is told the story of Cathy and Heathcliff. In the English version of G.W. Pabst's Don Quixote (1933), he played the Duke who invites Don Quixote and Sancho Panza to his castle, and in the original To Be or Not to Be (1942), he was one of the two British officers to whom Robert Stack first reveals his suspicions about the treacherous Professor Siletsky (Stanley Ridges).
Personal life
His first wife was Prativa Sundari Devi, a princess of Cooch Behar. She was the daughter of Maharaja Nripendra Narayan and Maharani Suniti Devi of Cooch Behar and paternal aunt of Gayatri Devi, Maharani of Jaipur.
His second wife was Kathleen ('Bunty') French, of Sydney, Australia, by whom he had a son, Theodore, to whom he dedicated a book of memoirs and advice, To My Son—in Confidence (1934). He died suddenly of a heart attack at the Brown Derby restaurant in Los Angeles, aged 57. He is currently buried at Ocean View Burial Park in Burnaby, Greater Vancouver Regional District, British Columbia, Canada.
Filmography
As actor
Testimony (1920) (film debut)
A Scandal in Bohemia (1921) as Godfrey Norton
The Place of Honour (1921) as Lt. Devereaux
Half a Truth (1922) as Marquis Sallast
Open Country (1922) as Honorable William Chevenix
Lovers in Araby (1924) as Derek Fare
The Pleasure Garden (1925) as Levett
The Prude's Fall (1925) as Sir Neville Moreton
London Love (1926) as Sir James Daring
Tip Toes (1927) as Rollo Stevens
The Fake (1927) as Honourable Gerald Pillick
Parisiennes (1928) as Armand de Marny
The Joker (1928) as Mr. Borwick
The King of Carnival (1928) as Borwick
The Physician (1928) as Walter Amphiel
Balaclava (1928) as Captain Gardner
The First Born (1928) as Sir Hugo Boycott
Perjury (1929) as Adolf Sperber
The Crooked Billet (1929) as Guy Morrow
Loose Ends (1930) as Raymond Carteret
Murder! (1930) as Gordon Druce
Mary (1931) as Gordon Moore
The Missing Rembrandt (1932) as Claude Holford
Lily Christine (1932) as Ambatriadi
That Night in London (1932) as Harry Tresham
Bitter Sweet (1933) as Captain Auguste Lutte
Don Quixote (1933) as The Duke of Fallanga
Loyalties (1933) as Capt. Ronald Dancy, DSO
The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) as Wriothesley
Matinee Idol (1933) as Harley Travers
The Four Masked Men (1934) as Rodney Fraser
The Battle (1934) as Feize
The Case for the Crown (1934) as James L. Barton
Death Drives Through (1935) as Garry Ames
Here's to Romance (1935) as Bert
The Three Musketeers (1935) as King Louis XIII
The Flying Doctor (1936) as Spectator at boxing match (uncredited)
Lloyd's of London (1936) as Jukes
Slave Ship (1937) as Corey
Wake Up and Live (1937) as James Stratton
Youth on Parole (1937) as Sparkler
Kidnapped (1938) as Ebenezer Balfour
The Mad Miss Manton (1938) as Mr. Fred Thomas
Suez (1938) as Benjamin Disraeli
The Three Musketeers (1939) as Cardinal Richelieu
The Little Princess (1939) as Lord Wickham
Wuthering Heights (1939) as Lockwood
Daredevils of the Red Circle (1939, Serial) as Horace Granville
The Man in the Iron Mask (1939) as Aramis
Stanley and Livingstone (1939) as Sir John Gresham
Tower of London (1939) as King Henry VI
The Earl of Chicago (1940) as Attorney General (uncredited)
Laddie (1940) as Mr. Charles Pryor
The House of the Seven Gables (1940) as Deacon Arnold Foster
Road to Singapore (1940) as Sir Malcolm Drake (uncredited)
Primrose Path (1940) as Homer Adams
Babies for Sale (1940) as Dr. Wallace Rankin
Captain Caution (1940) as Lt. Strope
South of Suez (1940) as Roger Smythe
Free and Easy (1941) as Solicitor (uncredited)
Shadows on the Stairs (1941) as Tom Armitage
That Hamilton Woman (1941) as Lord Keith
They Met in Bombay (1941) as Doctor (uncredited)
Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day (1941) as Dr. John F. Lockberg
Fly-By-Night (1942) as Prof. Langner
A Tragedy at Midnight (1942) as Dr Hilary Wilton
Captains of the Clouds (1942) as Winston Churchill (voice) (uncredited)
To Be or Not to Be (1942) as Maj. Cunningham
Fingers at the Window (1942) as Dr. Kurt Immelman
This Above All (1942) as Major
Tarzan's New York Adventure (1942) as Portmaster
Mrs. Miniver (1942) as German Agent on Radio (voice) (uncredited)
Somewhere I'll Find You (1942) as Floyd Kirsten (uncredited)
The War Against Mrs. Hadley (1942) as Doctor Leonard V. Meecham
Apache Trail (1942) as James V. Thorne
Lucky Jordan (1942) as Kilpatrick
Journey for Margaret (1942) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Secrets of the Underground (1942) as Paul Panois
Assignment in Brittany (1943) as Col. Herman Fournier
Five Graves to Cairo (1943) as Col. Fitzhume (uncredited)
First Comes Courage (1943) as Col. Wallace (uncredited)
Phantom of the Opera (1943) as Maurice Pleyel
Guadalcanal Diary (1943) as Weatherby (uncredited)
The Return of the Vampire (1943) as Sir Frederick Fleet
Madame Curie (1943) as Businessman (uncredited)
Four Jills in a Jeep (1944) as Col. Hartley (uncredited)
The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944) as Man (uncredited)
The White Cliffs of Dover (1944) as Major Loring at hospital (uncredited)
The Scarlet Claw (1944) as Judge Brisson
The Pearl of Death (1944) as Giles Conover
Enter Arsene Lupin (1944) as Charles Seagrave
Murder, My Sweet (1944) as Mr. Leuwen Grayle
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) as Sir Robert Bentley
The Brighton Strangler (1945) as Chief Inspector W.R. Allison
Crime Doctor's Warning (1945) as Frederick Malone
Week-End at the Waldorf (1945) as British Secretary
Confidential Agent (1945) as Mr. Brigstock
The Bandit of Sherwood Forest (1946) as Lord Warrick
The Walls Came Tumbling Down (1946) as Dr. Marko
The Imperfect Lady (1947) as Mr. Rogan (final film)
As director
The Whistler (December 1926) short made in DeForest Phonofilm
The Sheik of Araby (December 1926) short made in Phonofilm
Knee Deep in Daisies (December 1926) short made in Phonofilm
The Fair Maid of Perth (December 1926) short made in Phonofilm
False Colours (April 1927) short made in Phonofilm
The Sentence of Death (April 1927), short made in Phonofilm
Packing Up (April 1927) short made in Phonofilm
As We Lie (April 1927) short film made in Phonofilm
The First Born (1928)
The Woman Between (1931)
Fascination (1931)
Youthful Folly (1934)
The Morals of Marcus (1935)
The Flying Doctor (1936)
As writer
Lovers in Araby (1924)
As We Lie (1927) (story)
The First Born (1928)
The Woman Between (1931)
L'Atlantide (1932) directed by G. W. Pabst
The Lodger (1932)
The Morals of Marcus (1935)
The Flying Doctor (1936)
As producer
The Man Without Desire (1923)
Knee Deep in Daisies (1926)
The First Born (1928)
The Flying Doctor (1936)
Watchtower Over Tomorrow (1945) (uncredited)
Sources
Miles Mander, To my Son—in Confidence, Faber, 1934
Miles Mander, Gentleman by Birth, 1933
Sir Geoffrey Le Mesurier Mander (ed), The History of Mander Brothers, Wolverhampton. 1955
C. Nicholas Mander, Varnished Leaves: a biography of the Mander Family of Wolverhampton, 1750-1950, Owlpen Press, 2004
Patricia Pegg, A Very Private Heritage: the private papers of Samuel Theodore Mander, 1853-1900, Malvern, 1996
The Times obituary, February 11, 1946, p. 6
Notes
External links
Miles Mander biography
1888 births
1946 deaths
English male film actors
English male silent film actors
Military personnel from Wolverhampton
McGill University alumni
20th-century New Zealand farmers
People educated at Harrow School
Actors from Wolverhampton
British Army personnel of World War I
20th-century English male actors
British expatriate male actors in the United States
Royal Army Service Corps officers