Ronald Charles Colman (9 February 1891 – 19 May 1958) was an English-born actor, starting his career in theatre and silent film in his native country, then emigrating to the United States and having a highly successful Hollywood film career. He starred in silent films and successfully transitioned to sound, aided by a distinctive, pleasing voice. He was most popular during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. He received Oscar nominations for Bulldog Drummond (1929), Condemned (1929) and Random Harvest (1942). Colman starred in several classic films, including A Tale of Two Cities (1935), Lost Horizon (1937) and The Prisoner of Zenda (1937). He also played the starring role in the Technicolor classic Kismet (1944), with Marlene Dietrich, which was nominated for four Academy Awards. In 1947, he won an Academy Award for Best Actor and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for the film A Double Life.
Colman was an inaugural recipient of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in motion pictures. He was awarded a second star for his television work.
Early years
Ronald Charles Colman was born in Richmond, Surrey, England, the third son (his eldest brother died in infancy in 1882) and fifth child of Charles Colman, a silk merchant, and his wife Marjory Read Fraser. His surviving siblings were Gladys, Edith, Eric and Freda.
He was educated at boarding school in Littlehampton, where he discovered that he enjoyed acting, despite his shyness. He intended to study engineering at Cambridge, but his father's sudden death from pneumonia in 1907 made it financially impossible.
He became a well-known amateur actor, and was a member of the West Middlesex Dramatic Society in 1908–09. He made his first appearance on the professional stage in 1914.
First World War
While working as a clerk at the British Steamship Company in the City of London, he joined the London Scottish Regiment in 1909 as a Territorial Force soldier. At the outbreak of the First World War, he was mobilised, and sent to France in September 1914. On 31 October 1914, at the Battle of Messines, Colman was seriously wounded by shrapnel in his ankle, which gave him a limp that he would attempt to hide throughout his acting career. As a consequence, he was mustered out as invalid in 1915, and received the Silver War Badge for having been honourably discharged from the army due to wounds received in the war. His fellow Hollywood actors Claude Rains, Herbert Marshall, Cedric Hardwicke, and Basil Rathbone all saw service with the London Scottish in the war.
Career
Theatre
Colman had sufficiently recovered from his wartime injuries to appear at the London Coliseum on 19 June 1916 as Rahmat Sheikh in The Maharani of Arakan, with Lena Ashwell, at the Playhouse in December that year as Stephen Weatherbee in the Charles Goddard/Paul Dickey play The Misleading Lady, and at the Court Theatre in March 1917 as Webber in Partnership. At the same theatre, the following year he appeared in Eugène Brieux's Damaged Goods. At the Ambassadors Theatre in February 1918, he played George Lubin in The Little Brother. In 1918, he toured the UK as David Goldsmith in The Bubble.
In 1920, Colman went to America and toured with Robert Warwick in The Dauntless Three and subsequently toured with Fay Bainter in East Is West. He married his first wife, Thelma Raye, in 1920; they divorced in 1934. At the Booth Theatre in New York City in January 1921, he played the Temple Priest in William Archer's play The Green Goddess. With George Arliss at the 39th Street Theatre in August 1921, he appeared as Charles in The Nightcap. In September 1922, he had great success as Alain Sergyll at the Empire Theatre in New York City in La Tendresse, which was to be his final stage work.
Film
Colman had first appeared in films in Britain in 1917 and 1919 for director Cecil Hepworth. He subsequently acted for the old Broadwest Film Company in Snow in the Desert. While he was on stage in New York City in La Tendresse, director Henry King saw him and engaged him as the leading man in the 1923 film The White Sister, opposite Lillian Gish. He was an immediate success. Thereafter, Colman virtually abandoned the stage for film.