Sydney Hughes Greenstreet (27 December 1879 – 18 January 1954) was an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
actorAn actor or actress is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, best known for his work with
Humphrey BogartHumphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor.After trying various jobs, Bogart began acting in 1921 and became a regular in Broadway productions in the 1920s and 1930s. When the stock market crash of 1929 reduced the demand for plays, Bogart turned to film...
and
Peter LorrePeter Lorre was an Austrian-American actor frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner.He made an international sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer who preys on little girls in the German film M...
in the 1940s.
Greenstreet was born in
SandwichSandwich is a historic town in Kent, south-east England. It was one of the Cinque Ports and still has many original medieval buildings. While once a major port, it is now two miles from the sea, its historic centre preserved.....
,
KentKent , originally Cantia, is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the River Thames estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, the son of a leather merchant, and had seven siblings. He left home at age 18 to make his fortune as a Ceylon tea planter, but drought forced him out of business and back to England. He managed a brewery and, to escape boredom, took acting lessons.
Sydney Hughes Greenstreet (27 December 1879 – 18 January 1954) was an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
actorAn actor or actress is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, best known for his work with
Humphrey BogartHumphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor.After trying various jobs, Bogart began acting in 1921 and became a regular in Broadway productions in the 1920s and 1930s. When the stock market crash of 1929 reduced the demand for plays, Bogart turned to film...
and
Peter LorrePeter Lorre was an Austrian-American actor frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner.He made an international sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer who preys on little girls in the German film M...
in the 1940s.
Biography
Greenstreet was born in
SandwichSandwich is a historic town in Kent, south-east England. It was one of the Cinque Ports and still has many original medieval buildings. While once a major port, it is now two miles from the sea, its historic centre preserved.....
,
KentKent , originally Cantia, is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the River Thames estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, the son of a leather merchant, and had seven siblings. He left home at age 18 to make his fortune as a Ceylon 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 a
Sherlock HolmesSherlock Holmes is a fictional character of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who first appeared in publication in 1887. He is the creation of British author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle...
entry by Sir
Arthur Conan DoyleSir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle,
DL was a British physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
at the Marina Theatre in
RamsgateRamsgate is a seaside town on the Isle of Thanet in east Kent, England. It was one of the great English seaside towns of the 19th century and is a member of the ancient confederation of Cinque ports. It has a population of around 40,000. Ramsgate's main attraction is its coastline and its main...
, Kent. He toured England with
Ben GreetSir Philip Barling "Ben" Greet was a Shakespearean actor, director, and impresario.-Early life:The younger son of Captain William Greet RN and his wife, Sarah Barling, Greet was born on board HMS Crocodile, a Royal Navy recruiting ship tied up at the Tower of London. He was educated at the Royal...
's Shakespearian company, and in 1905, he made his
New YorkNew York is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous. The state is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
debut. Thereafter he appeared in such plays as a revival of
As You Like ItAs You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 or early 1600 and first published in the folio of 1623. The work was based upon the novel Rosalynde by Thomas Lodge. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in...
in 1916 with revered actress
Margaret AnglinMary Margaret Anglin was a Canadian-born Broadway actress, director and producer whom Encyclopædia Britannica calls "one of the most brilliant actresses of her day."...
. Greenstreet appeared in numerous plays in England and America, working through most of the 1930s with
Alfred LuntAlfred Lunt was an American stage director and actor, often identified for an incomparable, long-time professional partnership with his wife, actress Lynn Fontanne...
and
Lynn FontanneLynn Fontanne was a British actress and major stage star in the United States for over 40 years, who with her husband Alfred Lunt was part of the most acclaimed acting team in the history of the American theater....
at the
Theatre GuildThe Theatre Guild is a theatrical society founded in New York City in 1919 by Theresa Helburn, Lawrence Langner, and Armina Marshall. It evolved out of the work of the Washington Square Players....
. 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
1941The year 1941 in film involved some significant events.-Events:Citizen Kane, consistently rated as one of the greatest films of all time, was released in 1941.-Top grossing films :-Academy Awards:...
, Greenstreet began working for
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. (also known as Warner Bros. Pictures, or simply Warner Bros.—the shortened form of the former official, sometimes still used, formal corporate name: Warner Brothers
His debut film role was also his most famous: Kasper Gutman ("The Fat Man") in The Maltese FalconThe Maltese Falcon is a 1941 American Warner Bros. film based on novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett. Written and directed by John Huston, the movie stars Humphrey Bogart as private investigator Sam Spade, Mary Astor as his femme fatale client, Sydney Greenstreet in his film debut, and Peter...
, which co-starred Peter LorrePeter Lorre was an Austrian-American actor frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner.He made an international sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer who preys on little girls in the German film M...
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 CasablancaCasablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid and featuring Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre. Set during World War II, it focuses on a man torn between, in the words of one...
as crooked club owner Signor Ferrari (for which he received a salary of $3750 per week for seven weeks), as well as Background to DangerBackground to Danger is a 1943 film starring George Raft, Brenda Marshall, Sydney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre. Based on the novel of the same title by Eric Ambler and set in Turkey , the screenplay was credited to W.R...
(1943, with George Raft), Passage to MarseillePassage to Marseille is a 1944 war film made by Warner Brothers, directed by Michael Curtiz and produced by Hal B. Wallis with Jack L. Warner as executive producer. The screenplay was by Casey Robinson and Jack Moffitt from the novel Sans Patrie by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall...
(1944, reteaming him with Casablanca stars Humphrey BogartHumphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor.After trying various jobs, Bogart began acting in 1921 and became a regular in Broadway productions in the 1920s and 1930s. When the stock market crash of 1929 reduced the demand for plays, Bogart turned to film...
and Claude RainsClaude Rains was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned 47 years; he later held American citizenship. He was known for many roles in Hollywood films, among them The Invisible Man, the corrupt senator in Mr...
), The Mask of DimitriosThe Mask of Dimitrios is a American film noir directed by Jean Negulesco and written by Frank Gruber, based on the 1939 novel of the same name written by Eric Ambler . Ambler is known as a major influence on writers and an inventor of the modern thriller genre...
(1944, receiving top billing), The Conspirators (1944, with Hedy Lamarr and Paul Henreid), Hollywood CanteenHollywood Canteen is a Warner Bros. feature film starring Joan Leslie, Robert Hutton, and Dane Clark. The film was written and directed by Delmer Daves, and is notable for featuring many stars in cameo roles...
(1944), Three Strangers (1946, receiving top billing), and The VerdictThe Verdict is a 1946 film-noir drama directed by Don Siegel and written by Israel Zangwill and Peter Milne, based on Zangwill's novel The Big Bow Mystery. The film stars Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre in one of their nine film pairings, as well as Joan Lorring and George Coulouris. Ian Wolfe...
(1946, with top billing). After a mere eight years, in 1949, Greenstreet's film career ended with Malaya, in which he was billed third, after Spencer TracySpencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 74 films from 1930 to 1967. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Tracy among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, ranking 9th on the list...
and James StewartJames Maitland "Jimmy" Stewart was an American film and stage actor, best known for his self-effacing persona. Over the course of his career, he starred in many films widely considered classics and was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one in competition and receiving one Lifetime...
. In those eight years, he worked with stars ranging from Clark GableWilliam Clark Gable was an American film actor, nicknamed "The King of Hollywood" in his heyday. In , the American Film Institute named Gable seventh among the greatest male stars of all time....
to Ava GardnerAva Lavinia Gardner was an American actress.She was signed to a contract by MGM Studios in 1941 and appeared in supporting roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers . She became one of Hollywood's leading actresses, admired for her beauty, and highly regarded for her...
to Joan CrawfordJoan Crawford was an American actress in film, television and theatre. Starting as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies before debuting on Broadway, Crawford was signed to a motion picture contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925...
. Author Tennessee WilliamsTennessee Williams , né Thomas Lanier Williams, was an American playwright who received many of the top theatrical awards for his works of drama...
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 WolfeNero Wolfe is a fictional detective, created by the American mystery writer Rex Stout, who made his debut in 1934. Wolfe's confidential assistant Archie Goodwin recorded the cases of the detective genius in 33 novels and 39 short stories from the 1930s to the 1970s, with most of them set in New...
on the NBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices in Burbank,California...
radio program The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe, based loosely on the rotund detective genius created by Rex StoutRex Todhunter Stout was an American crime writer, best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective Nero Wolfe, described by reviewer Will Cuppy as "that Falstaff of detectives." Wolfe's assistant Archie Goodwin recorded the cases of the detective genius from 1934 to 1975...
.
Greenstreet suffered from diabetes and Bright's diseaseBright's disease is a historical classification of kidney diseases that would be described in modern medicine as acute or chronic nephritis. The term is no longer used, as diseases are now classified according to their more fully understood causes....
, 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 CemeteryForest Lawn Memorial Park is a privately-owned cemetery in Glendale, Los Angeles, in the United States. It is the original location of Forest Lawn, a chain of cemeteries in Southern California...
, in Glendale, CaliforniaGlendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. It lies at the eastern end of the San Fernando Valley, is bisected by the Verdugo Mountains, and is a suburb in the Greater Los Angeles Area...
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 died 4 March 2004 at age 74.
Sydney is the great-uncle of actor Mark GreenstreetMark Greenstreet is a British actor who first came to prominence in the 1985 BBC television serial Brat Farrar. First and foremost a stage actor, Greenstreet played many of the great leading roles from the works of Shakespeare, Chekhov and Ibsen to Orton, Wilde and Coward in the UK and around the...
.
As a tribute to Greenstreet, the crime boss Hector Lemans in the computer game Grim FandangoGrim Fandango is a personal computer game in the graphic adventure genre released by LucasArts in and primarily written by Tim Schafer. It is the first adventure game by LucasArts to use 3D computer graphics overlaid on pre-rendered 2D backgrounds...
was based on him. Jim Ward voiced the character, and even copied Greenstreet's unmistakable evil laugh.
An episode of Star Trek, The Next GenerationStar Trek: The Next Generation is a science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as part of the Star Trek franchise. Created about 21 years after the original Star Trek, and set in the 24th century about 80 years after the orginal series, the program features a new crew and a new...
called "The Big Goodbye" has holographic villain called Cyrus Redblock, played by Lawrence TierneyLawrence Tierney was an American actor, known for his many screen portrayals of mobsters and hardened criminals, which mirrored his own frequent brushes with the law....
, an apparent play on Greenstreet's character Kasper Gutman (The Fat Man) in The Maltese Falcon
Greenstreet was partially the inspiration for the Jabba the HuttJabba the Hutt is a fictional character in George Lucas's space opera saga Star Wars. He is first mentioned in the first film, A New Hope, where he was referred to as a gangster who had a bounty on Han Solo who owed him money for dumping an illegal cargo...
character from Return of the Jedi (1983)
Robert SerberRobert Serber was an American physicist who participated in the Manhattan Project.Robert Serber was born in Philadelphia. He earned his B.S...
stated in his memoirs that as the "Fat ManFat Man is the codename for the atomic bomb that was detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, by the United States on August 9, 1945, at 11:02 . It was the second of the only two nuclear weapons to be used in warfare and was the third man-made nuclear explosion. The name also refers more generically to the...
" atomic bomb was round and fat, he named it after Greenstreet's character of "Kasper Gutman" in The Maltese FalconThe Maltese Falcon is a 1941 American Warner Bros. film based on novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett. Written and directed by John Huston, the movie stars Humphrey Bogart as private investigator Sam Spade, Mary Astor as his femme fatale client, Sydney Greenstreet in his film debut, and Peter...
.
It is also said that Marlon BrandoMarlon Brando, Jr. was an American actor whose body of work spanned over half a century. He was named the fourth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute, and part of Time magazine's Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century He is widely considered one of the...
, in A Dry White SeasonA Dry White Season is a film which was created in 1989 by Davros Films and Sundance Productions and distributed by MGM. It was directed by Euzhan Palcy and produced by Paula Weinstein, Mary Selway and Tim Hampton. The screenplay was by Colin Welland and Euzhan Palcy, based upon André Brink's novel...
, imitated the speech patterns of Greenstreet.
Filmography
- Malaya
Malaya is a 1949 war film starring Spencer Tracy, James Stewart, and Sydney Greenstreet.-Plot:Smuggler Carnaghan is let out of prison by government agent Kellar on condition that he help John Royer sneak the entire vitally-needed rubber crop out of Japanese-held Malaya during World War II...
(1949) .... The Dutchman
- Flamingo Road
Flamingo Road is a Warner Bros. feature film starring Joan Crawford, Zachary Scott, Sydney Greenstreet and David Brian in a story about small town political corruption. The screenplay by Edmund H. North was based upon a play by Robert and Sally Wilder. The film was directed by Michael Curtiz and...
(1949) .... Sheriff Titus Semple
- The Woman in White (1948) .... Count Alessandro Fosco
- Ruthless
Ruthless is a drama film directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and starring Zachary Scott and Louis Hayward.-Plot:Horace Vendig shows himself to the world as a rich philanthropist. In fact, the history of his rise from his unhappy broken home shows this to be far from the case...
(1948) .... Buck Mansfield
- The Velvet Touch
The Velvet Touch is a 1948 American drama film released by RKO.At its center is Broadway leading lady Valerie Stanton, who accidentally kills her producer and former lover, Gordon Dunning, during an argument about the direction her career should take...
(1948) .... Capt. Danbury
- The Hucksters
The Hucksters is a 1947 MGM film directed by Jack Conway and starring Clark Gable that marked the debut of Deborah Kerr in an American film. It also featured Sydney Greenstreet, Adolphe Menjou, Keenan Wynn, Edward Arnold and Ava Gardner. The film is based on the novel written by Frederic Wakeman,...
(1947) .... Evan Llewellyn Evans
- That Way with Women (1947) .... James P. Alden
- The Verdict
The Verdict is a 1946 film-noir drama directed by Don Siegel and written by Israel Zangwill and Peter Milne, based on Zangwill's novel The Big Bow Mystery. The film stars Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre in one of their nine film pairings, as well as Joan Lorring and George Coulouris. Ian Wolfe...
(1946) .... Supt. George Edward Grodman
- Devotion
Devotion is a 1946 highly-fictionalized biographical film account of the lives of the Brontë sisters. This was Montagu Love's last role. He died before the film's release.-Cast:*Ida Lupino as Emily Bronte*Paul Henreid as Reverend Arthur Nicholls...
(1946) .... William Makepeace Thackeray
- Three Strangers
Three Strangers is a Warner Bros. crime drama, starring Peter Lorre, Geraldine Fitzgerald, and Sydney Greenstreet, featuring Joan Lorring and Alan Napier. It was directed by Jean Negulesco from a script by John Huston and Howard Koch.-Plot:...
(1946) .... Jerome K. Arbutny
- Christmas in Connecticut
Christmas in Connecticut is a Christmas movie, starring Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, and Sydney Greenstreet. Released through Warner Brothers, it was directed by Peter Godfrey...
(1945) .... Alexander Yardley
- Conflict (1945) .... Dr. Mark Hamilton
- Pillow to Post (1945) .... Colonel Michael Otley
- Hollywood Canteen
Hollywood Canteen is a Warner Bros. feature film starring Joan Leslie, Robert Hutton, and Dane Clark. The film was written and directed by Delmer Daves, and is notable for featuring many stars in cameo roles...
(1944) .... Himself
- The Conspirators (1944) .... Ricardo Quintanilla
- The Mask of Dimitrios
The Mask of Dimitrios is a American film noir directed by Jean Negulesco and written by Frank Gruber, based on the 1939 novel of the same name written by Eric Ambler . Ambler is known as a major influence on writers and an inventor of the modern thriller genre...
(1944) .... Mr. Peters
- Between Two Worlds
Between Two Worlds is a 1944 film set during World War II, featuring John Garfield, Paul Henreid, Sydney Greenstreet, and Eleanor Parker. It is a remake of the 1930 film, Outward Bound, itself based on the 1924 play of the same name...
(1944) .... Reverend Tim Thompson
- Passage to Marseille
Passage to Marseille is a 1944 war film made by Warner Brothers, directed by Michael Curtiz and produced by Hal B. Wallis with Jack L. Warner as executive producer. The screenplay was by Casey Robinson and Jack Moffitt from the novel Sans Patrie by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall...
(1944) .... Major Duval
- Background to Danger
Background to Danger is a 1943 film starring George Raft, Brenda Marshall, Sydney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre. Based on the novel of the same title by Eric Ambler and set in Turkey , the screenplay was credited to W.R...
(1943) .... Colonel Robinson
- Casablanca
Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid and featuring Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre. Set during World War II, it focuses on a man torn between, in the words of one...
(1942) .... Signor Ferrari
- Across the Pacific
Across the Pacific is a 1942 spy film set on the eve of the entry of the United States into World War II. The film was directed first by John Huston, then by Vincent Sherman after Huston joined the United States Army Signal Corps...
(1942) .... Dr. Lorenz
- They Died with Their Boots On
They Died with Their Boots On is a 1941 western film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. Despite being rife with historical inaccuracies, the film was one of the top-grossing films of the year, being the last of eight Flynn–de Havilland collaborations.Like...
(1941) .... Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott
- The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon is a 1941 American Warner Bros. film based on novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett. Written and directed by John Huston, the movie stars Humphrey Bogart as private investigator Sam Spade, Mary Astor as his femme fatale client, Sydney Greenstreet in his film debut, and Peter...
(1941) .... Kasper Gutman
Further reading
-- Contains a full chapter on the professional friendship between Greenstreet and classic film actor Peter Lorre.
External links
- Sandwich Kent England UK: Local History Scrapbook: Sydney Greenstreet http://www.open-sandwich.co.uk
- FreeOTRShows — The Adventures of Nero Wolfe