George Zucco

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George Zucco
The Black Raven (1943)
Born(1886-01-11)11 January 1886
Manchester, Lancashire, England, UK
Died27 May 1960(1960-05-27) (aged 74)
Hollywood, California, US
Resting placeForest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills
OccupationActor
Years active1907–1951
Spouse
Stella Francis
​
(m. 1930)​
Children1

George Zucco (11 January 1886 – 27 May 1960) was a British character actor who appeared in plays and 96 films, mostly American-made, during a career spanning over two decades, from the 1920s to 1951.[1] In his films, he often played a suave villain, a member of nobility, or a mad doctor.[2]

Early life and family[edit]

George Desylla Zucco was born in Manchester, Lancashire, on 11 January 1886.[1][3] His mother Marian (née Rintoul) ran a dressmaking business. His father, George De Sylla Zucco, was a Greek merchant from Corfu who became a naturalised British subject in 1865.[4][2][5]

Zucco debuted on the Canadian stage in 1908 in a stock theater company.[6] In 1910, he entered the United States for the first time from Canada, bound for Seattle, Washington, where he soon appeared in plays such as The Melting Pot and The White Sister. He and his wife Frances toured the American vaudeville circuit during the 1910s, their satirical sketch about suffragettes earning them renown.[citation needed]

He returned to the UK and served as a lieutenant in the British Army's West Yorkshire Regiment during the First World War.[7] He lost the use of two fingers when he was shot in the right arm in France. When the war ended, he studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and later taught there.[6]

He became a leading stage actor of the 1920s, and made his film debut as Eugène Godefroy Cavaignac in The Dreyfus Case (1931), a British film dramatising the Dreyfus Affair.

Career[edit]

Zucco returned to the United States in 1935 to play Benjamin Disraeli in Victoria Regina,[8] and appeared with Gary Cooper and George Raft in Souls at Sea (1937).

He played Professor Moriarty in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939), opposite Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson. Zucco earned a reputation as a bespectacled, nefarious character in films such as After the Thin Man, Fast Company, Arrest Bulldog Drummond, Charlie Chan in Honolulu, The Cat and the Canary, and My Favorite Blonde.

During the 1940s, he took every role he was offered, landing himself in B-films and Universal horror films, including The Mummy's Hand (1940), The Mummy's Tomb (1942), The Mad Monster (1942), The Mad Ghoul (1943), Dead Men Walk (1943), The Mummy's Ghost (1944), House of Frankenstein (1944), and Tarzan and the Mermaids (1948). He was reunited with Basil Rathbone in another Sherlock Holmes adventure, Sherlock Holmes in Washington, this time playing not Moriarty, but a Nazi spy.

Last years and death[edit]

After playing a bit part in David and Bathsheba (1951), Zucco undertook a role in The Desert Fox, but suffered a stroke one day on the set, and never significantly recovered (he was replaced by Cedric Hardwicke). He suffered from stroke-induced dementia for the rest of his life, and he died on 27 May 1960 from pneumonia in a nursing facility in Hollywood, aged 74.[1]

Personal life[edit]

He and his wife, Stella Francis, had a daughter, Frances (1931–1962), who died of throat cancer at age 30, and a grandson, George Zucco (né Canto). Stella Zucco died from natural causes on May 11, 1999, aged 99, in Woodland Hills, California.[9]

Filmography[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c "George Zucco, 74, Film Actor, Dead". New York Times. 29 May 1960.
  2. ^ a b Feramisco, Thomas M. (2003). The Mummy Unwrapped. McFarland. p. 164. ISBN 0786413689.
  3. ^ Hess, Earl J.; Dabholkar, Pratibha A. (2014). The Cinematic Voyage of 'The Pirate': Kelly, Garland, and Minnelli at Work. Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press. p. 223. ISBN 9780826220226.
  4. ^ Naturalisation Papers: Zucco, George De Sylla, from Corfu, Greece. Certificate 4717 issued 1865. Natural Archives, Kew, London.
  5. ^ Parker, John (1916). Who's who in the Theatre. Pitman. p. 1492. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
  6. ^ a b Richards, Brad (October 2017). "George Zucco: Hollywood Madman". Classic Images (508): 6–14.
  7. ^ Ancestry.com. British Army WWI Medal Rolls Index Cards, 1914-1920 [database on-line]. Provo, Utah, US: The Generations Network, Inc., 2008.
  8. ^ "George Zucco". Internet Broadway Database. The Broadway League. Archived from the original on 2 November 2017. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
  9. ^ Lentz, Harris M. III (2000). Obituaries in the Performing Arts, 1999: Film, Television, Radio, Theatre, Dance, Music, Cartoons and Pop Culture. McFarland. p. 244. ISBN 9780786409198. Retrieved 2 November 2017.

External links[edit]

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