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Edmund Gwenn 1877 - 1959

Edmund Gwenn of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California United States was born on September 26, 1877 at Wandsworth in London United Kingdom to John Kellaway and Catherine Augusta Clementina (Oliver) Kellaway. He had siblings Margaret A Kellaway, Nellie Jane Kellaway, Arthur William Kellaway, Herbert Frank Kellaway, Eva Kellaway, and Elsie Kate Kellaway. He married Marguerite (Terry) Kellaway in 1901, and died at age 81 years old on September 6, 1959 in Los Angeles. Edmund Gwenn was buried at Chapel of the Pines Crematory - Apt H, in Los Angeles.

Edmund Gwenn

Teddy, Edmund John Kellaway

Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California United States

September 26, 1877

Wandsworth in London, United Kingdom

September 6, 1959

Los Angeles, California, United States

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Edmund Gwenn Edmund Gwenn (1877 - 1959)

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Edmund Gwenn's History: 1877 - 1959

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Introduction

Born Edmund John Kellaway on September 26th, 1877 in London, England, to John and Catherine (Oliver) Kellaway, his brother, Arthur Chesney, was also a stage and screen actor as an adult (as was their cousin, Cecil Kellaway). In 1895, after attending King's College London, Edmund began learning his craft on the stage, playing comic roles in an acting company. After marrying Marguerite "Minnie Mary" Terry (1882 - 1964) =her aunt was Ellen Terry, a famous actress - so many actors! - in 1901 in London, he moved to Australia for three years, acting with another troupe - the J.C. Williamson Company. When the couple moved back to England, they acted together on the stage and in early films. World War I interrupted his promising career and he enlisted in the British Army, serving as an officer. He and Minnie were divorced during this time but they remained friends for life. After "the war to end all wars", Gwenn picked up his acting career without missing a beat, returning to the British stage. Then, in 1916, he moved more heavily into films, appearing in many British movies. His final British film role, as a capitalist trying to take over a family brewery in Cheer Boys Cheer (1939) is credited with being the first authentic Ealing comedy. His first appearance in an American film was as Katherine Hepburn's father in George Cukor's "Sylvia Scarlett" (1935). Settling into the "British Colony" in Hollywood in 1940, a string of memorable roles followed. He won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as "Santa Claus" in "Miracle on 34th Street" and a 2nd nomination for "Mister 88". Gwenn acted until the 1950's, staying in Hollywood and eventually buying a house in Beverly Hills (he shared the home with athlete Rodney Soher). He once told a reporter: "I never married again because I was very happy with my wife. I simply stayed faithful to the memory of that happiness." You can scroll down to read more about his life at Edmund Gwenn: Obituaryand more about his film and stage rolls at Edmund Gwenn: Professions.
09/26

1877

Birthday

September 26, 1877

Birthdate

Wandsworth in London United Kingdom

Birthplace

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Ethnicity & Family History

Edmund was Caucasian, of English heritage on his paternal and maternal lines. Both of his parents were born in England.
Nationality & Locations

Born in Wandsworth, Surrey, England, Edmund was raised in England. As an adult, he moved to Australia for a few years, and he permanently moved to the United States in his early 60s. He died in Los Angles, California, at the age of 81
Early Life & Education

Edmund attended St. Olave's School. a boy's school in Orpington, Greater London, England, founded in 1571. He also attended King's College in London, England.
Military Service

Most of his time during "The Great War" - World War I - was spent drawing supplies up to the front lines while under fire. He was so successful at this task that, after a year as a private, he received a steady stream of promotions until eventually becoming a captain.
Professional Career

Edmund appeared on the English stage in plays and in films, eventually doing more and more on Broadway and in Hollywood. For example, he played the amiable counterfeiter in "Laburnum Grove" in 1933 - later to become the film Laburnum Grove (1936) in which he would star - and then with the entire British company, brought it to New York. He was also a huge success in "The Wookey" in 1942, playing a Cockney tugboat captain. That same year, he appeared as "Chebutykin" in Anton Chekhov's "The Three Sisters", with Katharine Cornell, Ruth Gordon and Judith Anderson. In such illustrious company, Gwenn was hailed by critics as "magnificent" and "superlatively good". In 1935, RKO summoned him to Hollywood to portray Katharine Hepburn's father in Sylvia Scarlett (1935). From then on, he was much in demand, appearing in Anthony Adverse (1936), All American Chump (1936), Parnell (1937), and A Yank at Oxford (1938). In 1940, he was the delightful "Mr. Bennet" in Pride and Prejudice (1940), then made a 180-degree turn by playing a folksy assassin in Alfred Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent (1940). The year 1941 brought Cheers for Miss Bishop (1941), One Night in Lisbon (1941), The Devil and Miss Jones (1941) and Scotland Yard (1941). Then came Charley's Aunt (1941), in which he romanced Jack Benny, masquerading as a woman. Other important films included A Yank at Eton (1942), The Meanest Man in the World (1943), The Keys of the Kingdom (1944) and Between Two Worlds (1944). In 1945, he played villain "Albert Richard Kingby" in Dangerous Partners (1945). There is a peculiar scene in this film, which makes one wonder what director Edward L. Cahn was thinking. James Craig and Signe Hasso, the hero and heroine, are being held by the villainous Gwenn in a room, when Gwenn comes in to interrogate them. In the midst of this, the 33-year-old, 6'2" Craig punches the 68-year-old, 5'5" Gwenn in the belly and then forces the doubled-over Gwenn to release them. Admittedly, Craig and Hasso must escape, and Gwenn's character is pretty evil, but knocking the wind out of the old man makes Craig seem like a bully and far less sympathetic. After "Dangerous Partners", Gwenn was in Bewitched (1945), She Went to the Races (1945), Of Human Bondage (1946), Undercurrent (1946), Life with Father (1947), Green Dolphin Street (1947) and Apartment for Peggy (1948). In Thunder in the Valley (1947), he played one of his most unlikable characters, a father who beats his son, smashes his violin and shoots his dog. Then in 1947, he struck it rich. Twentieth Century-Fox was planning Miracle on 34th Street (1947). It had offered the role of "Kris Kringle" to Gwenn's cousin, the well-known character actor Cecil Kellaway, but he had turned it down with the observation that "Americans don't like whimsy". Fox then offered it to Gwenn, who pounced on it. His performance was to earn him an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor (at age 71) and, because it is rerun every Christmas season, he would become for many their all-time favorite screen Santa. Accepting the award, Gwenn said, "Now I know there is a Santa Claus". He beat out some stiff competition: Charles Bickford (The Farmer's Daughter (1947)), Thomas Gomez (Ride the Pink Horse (1947)), Robert Ryan (Crossfire (1947)) and Richard Widmark (Kiss of Death (1947)). As soon as he got the part, Gwenn went to work turning himself into Santa Claus. Though rotund, Gwenn didn't feel he was rotund enough to look like the jolly old elf most people expected after having read Clement Moore's "The Night before Christmas", in which Santa "had a broad face and a little round belly / That shook when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly." He could of course wear padding, but he resisted that as too artificial. So he put on almost 30 pounds for the role, a fair amount for a man of his short stature, and added nearly five inches to his waistline. The problem was that after the film was finished, Gwenn found it hard to lose the extra weight. "I've been stocky all my adult life," he said, "but now I must accept the fact that I'm fat." As was his nature, he didn't get upset, and instead was able to laugh about it. Six years later, when playing an elderly professor in The Student Prince (1954), he had a scene in which he entered the Prince's chamber, struggling with the buttons of a ceremonial uniform. The line he was given was, "I'm too old to wear a uniform," but Gwenn suggested a change which stayed in the finished film, "I'm too old and fat to wear a uniform." Gwenn had lost his hair early on, and had no more concern about it than he did about his portliness. In a fair number of films, such as Pride and Prejudice (1940), he appears bald, but he also played many roles with a toupee if he felt that worked better for the character. He would select a hairpiece that helped achieve the look he was after for the role. As regards the rest of his appearance, Gwenn is commonly listed as 5'6" tall, which may have been accurate when he was a younger man, but by the time he was a Hollywood regular he appears to be at least two inches shorter. Plagued by weak eyesight since his youth, Gwenn wore a pince-nez for a while, and then glasses, off-screen and sometimes on. Though he enjoyed fine clothes, he does not seem to have been in the least bit vain about any physical shortcomings he may have had. He looked a bit like a benign clergyman, perhaps of the Anglican faith, an image enhanced by his soft, almost soothing voice. He once said he was "always short and stocky, and not a particularly handsome thing. I could never play romantic leads." After "Miracle on 34th Street," however, Gwenn was a star and constantly in demand, especially when the role called for a kindly eccentric.
Personal Life & Family

Edmund was married only once, to Marguerite "Minnie/Mary" White Terry. They divorced without having children and he never married again, saying: "I never married again because I was very happy with my wife. I simply stayed faithful to the memory of that happiness." When he moved to Los Angeles, California, he bought a house, which he shared with his friend, Olympic athlete Rodney Soher. He remained a British citizen his entire life. Filmography The Real Thing at Last (1916) as Rupert K. Thunder / Macbeth Unmarried (1920) as Simm Vandeleur The Skin Game (1921) as Hornblower How He Lied to Her Husband (1931) as Teddy Bompas The Skin Game (1931) as Mr. Hornblower Hindle Wakes (1931) as Chris Hawthorne Frail Women (1932) as The Bookmaker - Jim Willis Money for Nothing (1932) as Sir Henry Blossom Condemned to Death (1932) as Banting Love on Wheels (1932) as Philpotts Tell Me Tonight (1932) as Mayor Pategg The Good Companions (1933) as Jess Oakroyd Cash (1933) as Edmund Gilbert I Was a Spy (1933) as Burgomaster Smithy (1933) as John Smith Channel Crossing (1933) as Trotter Marooned (1933) as Tom Roberts Friday the Thirteenth (1933) as Mr Wakefield Early to Bed (1933) as Kruger Waltzes from Vienna (1934) as Johann Strauss, the Elder Warn London (1934) as Dr. Herman Krauss Passing Shadows (1934) as David Lawrence Java Head (1934) as Jeremy Ammidon The Admiral's Secret (1934) as Adm. Fitzporter Father and Son (1934) as John Bolton Spring in the Air (1934) as Franz The Bishop Misbehaves (1935) as Bishop Sylvia Scarlett (1935) as Henry Scarlett The Walking Dead (1936) as Dr. Beaumont Laburnum Grove (1936) as Mr. Radfern Anthony Adverse (1936) as John Bonnyfeather All American Chump (1936) as Jeffrey Crane Mad Holiday (1936) as Williams Parnell (1937) as Campbell South Riding (1938) as Alfred Huggins A Yank at Oxford (1938) as Dean of Cardinal Penny Paradise (1938) as Joe Higgins Cheer Boys Cheer (1939) as Edward Ironside The Earl of Chicago (1940) as Munsey, the Butler An Englishman's Home (1940) as Tom Brown The Doctor Takes a Wife (1940) as Dr. Lionel Sterling Pride and Prejudice (1940) as Mr. Bennet Foreign Correspondent (1940) as Rowley Cheers for Miss Bishop (1941) as President Corcoran Scotland Yard (1941) as Insp. Cork The Devil and Miss Jones (1941) as Hooper One Night in Lisbon (1941) as Lord Fitzleigh Charley's Aunt (1941) as Stephen Spettigue A Yank at Eton (1942) as Headmaster Justin Forever and a Day (1943) as Stubbs The Meanest Man in the World (1943) as Frederick P. Leggitt Lassie Come Home (1943) as Rowlie Between Two Worlds (1944) as Scrubby The Keys of the Kingdom (1944) as Father Hamish MacNabb Dangerous Partners (1945) as Albert Richard Kingby Bewitched (1945) as Dr. Bergson She Went to the Races (1945) as Dr. Homer Pecke Of Human Bondage (1946) as Athelny Undercurrent (1946) as Prof. 'Dink' Hamilton Miracle on 34th Street (1947) as Kris Kringle Life with Father (1947) as Rev. Dr. Lloyd Thunder in the Valley (1947) as Adam MacAdam Green Dolphin Street (1947) as Octavius Patourel Apartment for Peggy (1948) as Prof. Henry Barnes Hills of Home (1948) as Dr. William MacLure Challenge to Lassie (1949) as John Traill A Woman of Distinction (1950) as Mark 'J.M.' Middlecott Louisa (1950) as Henry Hammond Pretty Baby (1950) as Cyrus Baxter Mister 880 (1950) as William 'Skipper' Miller For Heaven's Sake (1950) as Arthur Peking Express (1951) as Father Joseph Murray Sally and Saint Anne (1952) as Grandpa Pat Ryan Les Misérables (1952) as Bishop Courbet Bonzo Goes to College (1952) as Ted 'Pop' Drew Something for the Birds (1952) as 'Admiral' Johnnie Adams Mister Scoutmaster (1953) as Dr. Stone The Bigamist (1953) as Mr. Jordan The Student Prince (1954) as Prof. Juttner Them! (1954) as Dr. Harold Medford The Trouble with Harry (1955) as Capt. Albert Wiles It's a Dog's Life (1955) as Jeremiah Edward Emmett Augustus Nolan Calabuch (1956, U.S. title The Rocket from Calabuch) as Prof. Jorge Serra Hamilton
09/6

1959

Death

September 6, 1959

Death date

pneumonia and complications from a stroke

Cause of death

Los Angeles, California United States
Death location

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Gravesite & Burial

mm/dd/yyyy
Funeral date
Chapel of the Pines Crematory - Apt H, in Los Angeles, California United States
Burial location
Obituary

Gwenn's final days were spent at the Motion Picture Home in Woodland Hills, California. Having endured terrible arthritis for many years, he had suffered a stroke, and then contracted pneumonia, from which he died at age 81 on September 6, 1959. His body was cremated, and his ashes are buried in a vault at The Chapel of the Pines in Los Angeles. Gwenn had appointed Rodney Soher as the executor of his will, in which he had left Minnie Terry one-third of his estate, his sister Elsie Kellaway a third, and Ernest Bach a third, in addition to his clothes, shoes, linens, ties and luggage. However, for some reason, while he was spending his last days at the Motion Picture Home, Gwenn signed a codicil to his will, in which he said he had given Bach the lump sum of $5000, and that was all he was to receive. After Gwenn's death, Bach challenged the codicil, claiming that Gwenn was not of sound mind while in the Home and that some unnamed person--possibly referring to Soher--had unduly influenced Gwenn to change his will. The outcome is not known. There is a story that has been around for years that shortly before he died a visitor observed, "It must be hard [to die]", to which Gwenn replied, "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard". The story and the wording vary somewhat from teller to teller. Gwenn may indeed have said it, but he may have been repeating someone else. The quotation has also been ascribed to several earlier wits, including his mentor George Bernard Shaw and the famous actor Edward Keane. Gwenn's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame can be found at 1751 Vine Street. The Times (08/Sep/1959) - Obituary: Edmund Gwenn MR. EDMUND GWENN VERSATILE CHARACTER ACTOR Mr. Edmund Gwenn, the actor, who died at Hollywood on Sunday night at the age of 81, established himself as a character actor who was equally well known on both sides of the Atlantic and was as successful in the cinema as in the theatre. He was bom in London on September 26, 1877, and educated at St. Olave's and at King's College, London. As a young actor he excelled in parts that required him to be vulgar, rough, and often noisy; but his acting was best enjoyed by those who saw the polish with which he portrayed the unpolished. He had all the resources of a "low" comedian; but after two separate periods with Willie Edouin and three years in Australia and New Zealand under J. C. Williamson, he made his fame first in a notably intellectual and even sophisticated setting at the Court Theatre under the Vedrenne-Barker management. There in 1905 to 1907 he was invaluable in smaller parts, among them "'Enery" Straker, the board-school-educated chauffeur of John Tanner in Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman, and the Cockney gangster in Captain Brassbound's Conversion; and in plays by Granville-Barker, Hankin, Galsworthy, and others he gave every part he played its full worth. In Barriers What Every Woman Knows, under Charles Frohman, at the Duke of York's Theatre in 1908, he acted James Wylie, the youth who goes nearly mad on election day, and rushes maniacally shouting on to the stage. Frohman engaged him for his repertory period at the same theatre in 1910; and there he was seen as the newly made knight in The Twelve-Pound Look, and in several other first-rate performances. He was the central figure in The Bearleaders, by R. C, Carton, at the Comedy in 1912; and after that he joined with Miss Hilda Trevelyan in the management of the Vaudeville Theatre and produced Little Miss Llewellyn. Out of scores of other parts, which he played in England and in America, the best remembered are probably Hornblower in Galsworthy's The Skin Game, the Viennese paterfamilias in Lilac Time, and Samuel Pepys in Fagan's And So to Bed in 1926. Some years later in his constantly busy career, it fell to him to play Samuel Pepys again in another play, Thank you Mr. Pepys, at the Shaftesbury Theatre. Among his other successes was his performance of George Radfern, the old forger, in Mr. Priestley's Laburnum Grove. ELSTREE AND HOLLYWOOD He appeared in several silent films during the 1920s — his first was The Skin Game — and made his debut in a talking picture called How He Lied to her Husband, a British film made at Elstree in 1931. Numerous other parts in early British sound pictures followed, best known of which, perhaps, was that of Jess Oakroyd in The Good Companions; and his old part in Sir Carol Reed's picture of Laburnum Grove. Gwenn first went to Hollywood in 1935 where he quickly made a reputation for himself, and was thereafter in constant demand, but he continued throughout his career to divide his time between the stage and the cinema. As a film actor, he will principally be remembered as a dumpy amiable figure beaming with toleration and good will (he was awarded an Oscar in 1948 for his real life Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street) but the seemingly effortless air of geniality masked a skilled and careful style of film acting which was based not only on wide experience, but also on a complete understanding of the film medium. Nor was he capable only of suggesting good humour, as he revealed in the well-known Hitchcock thriller Foreign Correspondent, where he tried to push the hero off the tower of Westminster Cathedral; and he also appeared in another Hitchcock thriller, The Trouble with Harry. During the war of 1914-18 Edmund Gwenn was temporarily commissioned in the Army Service Corps and for some time he was employed as an instructor of officer cadets at Aldershot, where he reached the rank of captain. In his earlier years he was a keen Rugby footballer and was a member of the Harlequins. The study of ships and the men who sail in them was another of his hobbies. Gwenn married a member of his own profession, Minnie, a daughter of Charles Terry and a niece of Ellen Terry. The marriage was dissolved.

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Edmund Gwenn lived 6 years longer than the average family member when died at the age of 81.

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