Luis van Rooten

Luis van Rooten, (born November 29, 1906 in Mexico City - died June 17, 1973 in Chatham, Massachusetts), was an American film actor. He was christened Luis d'Antin van Rooten.

He earned his BA at the University of Pennsylvania and worked as an architect before deciding to pursue film work in Hollywood sometime during World War II. His facility with languages made van Rooten an in-demand military radio announcer during the war and he conducted a variety of broadcasts in Italian, Spanish and French. This led naturally into film work, often in roles requiring an accent or skill with dialects. He is particularly known for his villainous roles, and played Nazi ringleader Heinrich Himmler in both "Hitler's Madman" (1943) and "Operation Eichmann" (1961).

Van Rooten played supporting roles with a wide swath of film stars, including Alan Ladd in "Two Years Before the Mast" (1946) and "Beyond Glory" (1948), Charles Laughton, Elsa Lanchester, Maureen O'Sullivan, and Ray Milland in "The Big Clock" (1948), Veronica Lake in "Saigon" (1948), Edward G. Robinson in "The Night Has a Thousand Eyes" (1948), and Kirk Douglas and Eleanor Parker in "Detective Story" 1951. He provided the voices for both the King and the Grand Duke in the Disney animated film version of "Cinderella."

As the 1950s arrived, van Rooten found steady work in live television, radio serials and in narration. He was the voice of the evil Roxor in the late 1940s revival of the radio serial "Chandu the Magician". He also performed on Broadway in Eugene O'Neill's "A Touch of the Poet" (1958) and John Osborne's "Luther" (1963).

He is best-known for his character work in films, but van Rooten was also a skilled artist and designer and the author of several sophisticated books of humor. These include "Van Rooten's Book of Improbable Saints" (Viking, 1975), "The Floriculturist's Vade Mecum of Exotic and Recondite Plants, Shrubs and Grasses, and One Malignant Parasite" (Doubleday, 1973), and "Mots D'Heures: Gousses, Rames" (Viking, 1967, ISBN 978-0140057300). In "Mots D'Heures"', ostensibly a collection of poems by an obscure and unsung Frenchman (with translations and commentary), Van Rooten used French words and phrases which, when spoken aloud with a French accent produce English Mother Goose rhymes. The following example, when spoken aloud, sounds like the opening lines to "Humpty Dumpty:"

:"Un petit d'un petit:"S'étonne aux Halles:"Un petit d'un petit:"Ah! Dégrés te falle

A free translation might read::Child of a child:Astonished by Les Halles:Child of a child:Disgrace befalls you

Van Rooten died June 17, 1973 in Chatham, Massachusetts, where he and his family had a vacation home.

See also

* "Anguish Languish"