- Sydney Greenstreet
Infobox actor
bgcolour = silver
name = Sydney Greenstreet
imagesize = 170px
caption = Sydney Greenstreet in "Casablanca".
birthname = Sydney Hughes Greenstreet
birthdate = birth date|1879|12|27|mf=y
location = Sandwich,Kent ,England
deathdate = death date and age|1954|1|18|1879|12|27|mf=y
deathplace =Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
othername =
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tonyawards =Sydney Hughes Greenstreet (
December 27 1879 –January 18 1954 ) was an Englishactor , best known for his work withHumphrey Bogart andPeter Lorre in the 1940s.Biography
Greenstreet was born in Sandwich,
Kent ,England , the son of a leather merchant, and had seven siblings. He left home at age 18 to make his fortune as aCeylon tea planter, but drought forced him out of business and back to England. He managed a brewery and, to escape boredom, took acting lessons. His stage debut was as a murderer called Craigen in a 1902 production of aSherlock Holmes entry by SirArthur Conan Doyle at the Marina Theatre in Ramsgate, Kent. He toured England withBen Greet 's Shakespearian company, and in 1905, he made hisNew York debut. Thereafter, Greenstreet appeared in numerous plays in England and America, working through most of the 1930s withAlfred Lunt andLynn Fontanne at theTheatre Guild . Throughout his stage career, his parts ranged from musical comedy to Shakespeare, and years of such versatile acting on two continents led to many offers to appear in films. He refused until he was 62.In 1941, Greenstreet began working for
Warner Bros. His debut film role was also his most famous: Kasper Gutman ("The Fat Man") in "The Maltese Falcon", which co-starredPeter Lorre as the twitchy Joel Cairo, a pairing that would prove profitable and long-lasting for Warner Bros. The duo appeared in nine films together, including "Casablanca" as crooked club owner Signor Ferrari (for which he received a salary of $3750 per week for seven weeks), as well as "Background to Danger " (1943, with George Raft), "Passage to Marseille " (1944, reteaming him with "Casablanca" ["Casablanca " (Two-Disc Special Edition DVD) (1942).] starsHumphrey Bogart andClaude Rains ), "The Mask of Dimitrios " (1944, receiving top billing), "The Conspirators" (1944, with Hedy Lamarr and Paul Henreid), "Hollywood Canteen" (1944), "Three Strangers" (1946, receiving top billing), and "The Verdict" (1946, with top billing). After a mere eight years, in 1949, Greenstreet's film career ended with "Malaya", in which he was billed third, afterSpencer Tracy and James Stewart. In those eight years, he worked with stars ranging fromClark Gable toAva Gardner toJoan Crawford . AuthorTennessee Williams wrote his one-act play "The Last of My Solid Gold Watches" with Greenstreet in mind, and dedicated it to him.In 1950 and 1951, Greenstreet played
Nero Wolfe on theNBC radio program "The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe", based loosely on the rotund detective genius created byRex Stout .Greenstreet suffered from
diabetes andBright's disease , a kidney disorder. Five years after leaving films, Greenstreet died in 1954 due to complications from diabetes. He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, inGlendale, California in the Utility Columbarium area of the Great Mausoleum, inaccessible to the public. He was survived by his only child, John Ogden Greenstreet, born out of Sydney's marriage to Dorothy Marie Ogden. John Ogden Greenstreet diedMarch 4 ,2004 at age 74.Sydney is the great-uncle of actor
Mark Greenstreet .As a tribute to Greenstreet, the crime boss Hector Lemans in the computer game "
Grim Fandango " was based on him. Jim Ward voiced the character, and even copied Greenstreet's unmistakable evil laugh.An episode of Star Trek, The Next Generation called "The Big Goodbye" has holographic villain called Cyrus Redblock, played by Lawrence Tierney, an apparent play on Greenstreet's character Kasper Gutman (The Fat Man) in The Maltese FalconWas partially the inspiration for the
Jabba the Hutt character fromReturn of the Jedi (1983) [Phil Tippett interview, ""documentary .]Filmography
* "Malaya" (1949) .... The Dutchman
* "Flamingo Road" (1949) .... Sheriff Titus Semple
* "The Woman in White" (1948) .... Count Alessandro Fosco
* "Ruthless" (1948) .... Buck Mansfield
* "The Velvet Touch " (1948) .... Capt. Danbury
* "The Hucksters " (1947) .... Evan Llewellyn Evans
* "That Way with Women" (1947) .... James P. Alden
* "The Verdict" (1946) .... Supt. George Edward Grodman
* "Devotion" (1946) .... William Makepeace Thackeray
* "Three Strangers " (1946) .... Jerome K. Arbutny
* "Christmas in Connecticut " (1945) .... Alexander Yardley
* "Conflict" (1945) .... Dr. Mark Hamilton
* "Pillow to Post" (1945) .... Colonel Michael Otley
* "Hollywood Canteen " (1944) .... Himself
* "The Conspirators" (1944) .... Ricardo Quintanilla
* "The Mask of Dimitrios " (1944) .... Mr. Peters
* "Between Two Worlds " (1944) .... Reverend Tim Thompson
* "Passage to Marseille " (1944) .... Major Duval
* "Background to Danger " (1943) .... Colonel Robinson
* "Casablanca" (1942) .... Signor Ferrari
* "Across the Pacific " (1942) .... Dr. Lorenz
* "They Died with Their Boots On " (1941) .... Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott
* "The Maltese Falcon" (1941) .... Kasper GutmanReferences
Further reading
*cite book|last=Youngkin|first=Stephen D.|title= [http://www.peterlorrebook.com/ The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre] |year=2005|publisher=University Press of Kentucky|id=ISBN 0-813-12360-7 -- Contains a full chapter on the professional friendship between Greenstreet and classic film actor Peter Lorre.
External links
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* Sandwich Kent England UK: Local History Scrapbook: Sydney Greenstreet http://www.open-sandwich.co.uk
* FreeOTRShows — [http://www.freeotrshows.com/otr/n/Adventures_of_Nero_Wolfe.html The Adventures of Nero Wolfe]
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