Underappreciated actors
By: P.M. Turner
Tags: Film, Golden Era, Hollywood, Actors

A number of top-notch Golden Era actors are barely remembered today, but back in their time, they were absolutely legendary. Even now, they are great talents who deserve to be remembered.

Robert Donat: Greater than Clark Gable?

Though he is little known today, handsome, dashing Robert Donat beat Clark Gable’s Rhett Butler from Gone with the Wind for Best Actor in the big year — 1939. The performance that took home the Oscar was shy British schoolmaster, Mr. Chipping. Donat’s sensitive, reserved portrayal of the lead character from James Hilton’s classic novel, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, was a thing of beauty. There is a possibility that MGM head Louis B. Mayer may have used his influence to get some nominations toward Goodbye, Mr. Chips, because 1939 was such a competitive year for the Academy Awards; most of the nominations were going toward Gone with the Wind, which of course did sweep the Oscars in the end. Donat’s win was a pleasant surprise…although maybe not for Clark Gable.

Donat was a talented actor, and much of his later career was spent in work in the theater. He died at the age of 53, shortly after the completion of his last film, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958). His last words in the film were poignantly prophetic: “We shall not see each other again this way, I think. Farewell.”

Ronald Colman: Cinema’s Most Refined Gentleman

The voice, the looks, the talent. Ronald Colman had everything needed to become one of the top leading men of Hollywood’s Golden Era — and remain so for roughly three decades.

Colman more than held his own in some of the biggest leading roles of the time: sardonic human tragedy Sidney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities (1935), idealistic Robert Conway in Lost Horizon (1937), Rudolf Rassendyll/King Rudolf in The Prisoner of Zenda (1938), and Charles Rainier, nicknamed “Smithy” in Random Harvest (1942).

He began as a popular romantic lead in silent films with frequent costar Vilma Banky. When the talkies rolled around, Colman’s distinctive, slightly raspy, but soothing and eloquently British voice became his greatest asset, and the thing he is best remembered for today.

Ronald Colman was originally considered for the lead role in Village of the Damned (1960), but died soon after completion of the script. His replacement was George Sanders, who, incidentally, also married Colman’s widow, Benita Hume.

William Powell: A Polished Wit

William Powell was the embodiment of the wise, world-weary gentleman who always had a wisecrack at the ready.

He is perhaps best remembered as debonair detective Nick Charles in the Thin Man series, along with his frequent costar Myrna Loy, who played his wife Nora in the Thin Man pictures.

He gave one of his greatest performances in the classic 1936 screwball comedy My Man Godfrey, in which he played the scion of a wealthy New York family who was passing himself off as a “forgotten man” and gets picked up by a high-society girl who employs him as the new butler.

William Powell received three Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, first for The Thin Man, then for My Man Godfrey, and thirdly, Life with Father. He was beat by Clark Gable for It Happened One Night, Paul Muni for The Story of Louis Pasteur, and finally, none other than Ronald Colman for A Double Life, respectively.

His last film appearance was in Mister Roberts (1955), and he died in 1984.