Robert Coote

Robert Coote (4 February 1909 – 26 November 1982) was an English actor. He played aristocrats or British military types in many films, and created the role of Colonel Hugh Pickering in the long-running original Broadway production of My Fair Lady.
Biography
Coote was born in London and educated at Hurstpierpoint College in Sussex. He began his stage career at the age of 16, performing in Britain, South Africa, and Australia before arriving in Hollywood in the late 1930s. He played a succession of pompous British types in supporting roles, including a brief but memorable turn as Sgt. Bertie Higginbotham in Gunga Din (1939). His acting career was interrupted by his service as a squadron leader in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II. He played Bob Trubshawe in Powell and Pressburger's A Matter of Life and Death (1946), chosen for the first-ever Royal Film Performance on 1 November 1946, before he returned to Hollywood, where his films included The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), Forever Amber (1947), The Three Musketeers (1948), and Orson Welles' Othello (1951).
In 1956, Coote created the role of Colonel Pickering in the original Broadway production of My Fair Lady (1956–62), which he reprised in the musical's 1976–77 Broadway revival. He also originated the role of King Pellinore in the Broadway production of Camelot (1960–63). He was nominated for an Emmy Award for his performance as Timmy St. Clair in the NBC TV series The Rogues (1964–65). In 1966, Coote appeared with Jackie Gleason and Art Carney in an episode of The Honeymooners entitled "The Honeymooners in England", broadcast on CBS-TV from Miami.
In his last feature film performance, Coote portrayed one of the critics dispatched by Vincent Price in Theatre of Blood (1973).
Coote guest-starred in an episode of the 1979 NBC television anthology series $weepstake$. His final role was on television, playing orchid nurse Theodore Horstmann in the 1981 NBC-TV series Nero Wolfe, starring William Conrad in the title role. In most film and TV adaptations of Nero Wolfe mysteries, before and since, Horstmann has been a very minor character, but Coote's Horstmann got considerable screen time in the series.
The veteran British character actor died in his sleep at the New York Athletic Club in November 1982, at the age of 73.
Coote was a close friend of actor David Niven, sharing a house with Niven for a time in the late 1930s and living in a flat over Niven's garage for several years after the Second World War.
Partial filmography
Sally in Our Alley (1931) as Waiter At Party (uncredited)
Loyalties (1933) as Robert
Radio Parade of 1935 (1934) as Executive
Rangle River (1936) as Reggie Mannister, Flight-Lieutenant
The Thirteenth Chair (1937) as Stanby
The Sheik Steps Out (1937) as Lord Eustace Byington
A Yank at Oxford (1938) as Wavertree
Blond Cheat (1938) as Gilbert Potts
The Girl Downstairs (1938) as Karl, Paul's Butler
Mr. Moto's Last Warning (1939) as Rollo Venables
Gunga Din (1939) as Sgt. Bertie Higginbotham
The House of Fear (1939) as Robert Morton
Bad Lands (1939) as Eaton
Nurse Edith Cavell (1939) as Bungey
Vigil in the Night (1940) as Dr. Caley
You Can't Fool Your Wife (1940) as 'Batty' Battincourt
Commandos Strike at Dawn (1942) as Robert Bowen
Forever and a Day (1943) as Blind Officer
A Matter of Life and Death (1946) as Bob Trubshawe
Cloak and Dagger (1946) as Cronin (uncredited)
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) as Mr. Coombe
Lured (1947) as Detective
The Exile (1947) as Dick Pinner
Forever Amber (1947) as Sir Thomas Dudley
Berlin Express (1948) as Sterling
The Three Musketeers (1948) as Aramis
The Red Danube (1949) as Brigadier C.M.V. Catlock
The Elusive Pimpernel (1950) as Sir Andrew ffloulkes
Soldiers Three (1951) as Maj. Mercer
The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) as Waiter in Restaurant (uncredited)
The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel (1951) as British Medical Officer (uncredited)
Othello (1951) as Roderigo
Scaramouche (1952) as Gaston Binet
The Merry Widow (1952) as Marquis De Crillon
The Prisoner of Zenda (1952) as Fritz von Tarlenheim
The Constant Husband (1955) as Friends and Relations: The Best Man
The Swan (1956) as Capt. Wunderlich
Merry Andrew (1958) as Dudley Larabee
The Horse's Mouth (1958) as Sir William Beeder
The League of Gentlemen (1960) as Bunny Warren
The V.I.P.s (1963) as John Coburn
The Rogues (1964–1965, TV Series) as Timmy St. Clair
The Golden Head (1964) as Braithwaite
A Man Could Get Killed (1966) as Hatton / Jones
The Swinger (1966) as Sir Hubert Charles
The Cool Ones (1967) as Stanley Krumley
The Whitehall Worrier (1967, TV series) as Rt. Hon. Mervyn Pugh
Prudence and the Pill (1968) as Henry Hardcastle
Kenner (1969) as Henderson
Up the Front (1972) as General Burke
Theatre of Blood (1973) as Oliver Larding
Institute for Revenge (1979, TV Movie) as Wellington
Nero Wolfe (1981, TV Series) as Theodore Horstmann (final appearance)
References
External links
Robert Coote performances in Theatre Archive, University of Bristol
1909 births
1982 deaths
English male film actors
People educated at Hurstpierpoint College
20th-century English male actors
Male actors from London
British expatriate male actors in the United States
Royal Canadian Air Force personnel of World War II
Royal Canadian Air Force officers