Ronald Colman

Ronald Colman (1891-1958) was a British film actor whose career began in the silent era. In talkies, his elegant but chivalrous manners and diction were used for dramatic leading roles in Lost Horizon, The Prisoner of Zenda, and A Tale of Two Cities. In the latter, as Sydney Carton going to the guillotine, he delivered Dickens' famous line "It's a far, far better thing I do than I've ever done." He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in Random Harvest (1942). 
Apart from his dramatic turns, Colman delved periodically into comedy, as stuffy academics in The Talk of the Town (with Cary Grant) and Champagne for Caesar (with Vincent Price) and in frequent radio appearances on The Jack Benny Program, with wife Benita Hume playing Benny's put-upon neighbors. This led to their own radio sitcom The Halls of Ivy, briefly translated to television (with Mary Wickes as their maid). Colman's last film roles had him among all-star casts in Around the World in 80 Days and The Story of Mankind.
==References==
*Sherlock Hemlock in his earliest Sesame Street appearances used Ronald Colman's distinctive "Ah, yes" clipped diction.
*Ronald Duck in The Muppet Show Episode 220 is a joint parody of Donald Duck and Ronald Colman (speaking in a soundalike voice and paraphrasing his Tale of Two Cities line: "'Tis a far, far better moose and duck you find before you...")
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