Melvyn douglas blacklist

American actor (–)

"Melvin Douglas" redirects here. For the American wrestler, see Melvin Douglas (wrestler).

Melvyn Douglas
MGM publicity photo of Douglas, c.
Born	Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg ()April 5, Macon, Georgia, U.S.
Died	August 4, () (aged&#;80) New York City, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years&#;active	–
Spouses	Rosalind Hightower &#; &#; (m.&#;; div.&#;)&#; Helen Gahagan &#; &#; (m.&#;; died&#;)&#;
Children	3
Relatives	Illeana Douglas (granddaughter)
Service / branch	&#;United States Army
Rank	Major

Melvyn Douglas (born Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg, April 5, – August 4, ) was an American actor.

Melvyn douglas granddaughter

Melvyn douglas cause of death

Melvyn douglas children

Melvyn douglas wife

Douglas came to prominence in as a suave leading man, perhaps best typified by his performance in the romantic comedy Ninotchka () with Greta Garbo. Douglas later played mature and fatherly characters, as in his Academy Award-winning performances in Hud () and Being There () and his Academy Award–nominated performance in I Never Sang for My Father ().

Douglas was one of 24 performers to win the Triple Crown of Acting. In the last few years of his life Douglas appeared in films with supernatural stories involving ghosts, including The Changeling in and Ghost Story in , his last completed film role.

Early life

Douglas was born in Macon, Georgia, the son of Lena Priscilla (née Shackelford) and Edouard Gregory Hesselberg, a concert pianist and composer.

Melvyn Douglas - Biography - IMDb: Melvyn Douglas (born Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg, April 5, – August 4, ) was an American actor. Douglas came to prominence in as a suave leading man, perhaps best typified by his performance in the romantic comedy Ninotchka () with Greta Garbo.

His father was a Jewish emigrant from Riga, Latvia, then part of the Russian Empire. His mother, a native of Tennessee, was Protestant and a Mayflower descendant.^[1][2]

Douglas, in his autobiography, See You at the Movies (), wrote that he was unaware of his Jewish background until later in his youth: "I did not learn about the non-Christian part of my heritage until my early teens." His parents preferred to hide his Jewish heritage.

His aunts, on his father's side, told him "the truth" when he was He wrote that he "admired them unstintingly"; they in turn, treated him like a son.^[1]

Though his father, a prominent concert pianist, taught music at a succession of colleges in the U.S. and Canada, Douglas never graduated from high school.

He took the surname of his maternal grandmother and became known as Melvyn Douglas.^{[citation needed]}

Career

Douglas developed his acting skills in Shakespearean repertory while in his teens and with stock companies in Sioux City, Iowa, Evansville, Indiana, Madison, Wisconsin and Detroit, Michigan.

He served in the United States Army in World War I. He established an outdoor theatre in Chicago. He had a long theatre, film and television career as a lead player, stretching from his Broadway role in Tonight or Never (opposite his future wife, Helen Gahagan) until just before his death. Douglas shared top billing with Boris Karloff and Charles Laughton in James Whale's sardonic horror classicThe Old Dark House in ^{[citation needed]}

Douglas appeared as the hero in the horror film The Vampire Bat and the sophisticated leading man in She Married Her Boss ().

He appeared with Joan Crawford in several films, most notably A Woman's Face (), and starred opposite Greta Garbo in three films: As You Desire Me (), Ninotchka () and Garbo's final film Two-Faced Woman (). One of his most sympathetic roles was as the belatedly attentive father in Captains Courageous ().

During World War II, Douglas served first as a director of the Arts Council in the Office of Civilian Defense, and he then again served in the United States Army rising to the rank of major in the Special Services Entertainment Production Unit.^[3] According to his granddaughter Illeana Douglas, Melvyn Douglas first met Peter Sellers, his future Being There co-star while in Burma, when Sellers was serving in the Royal Air Force during the war.^[4] After the war, Douglas returned to films and more mature roles in The Sea of Grass () and Mr.

Blandings Builds His Dream House ().

From to , Douglas made no film appearances, concentrating instead on stage and television work. During November to January , Douglas starred in the DuMont detective show Steve Randall (Hollywood Off Beat) which then moved to CBS. In the summer of , he briefly hosted the DuMont game showBlind Date.

In the summer of , Douglas hosted eleven original episodes of a CBS Westernanthologytelevision series called Frontier Justice, a production of Dick Powell's Four Star Television.

Douglas returned to films in the s. As he aged, he took on older-man and fatherly roles in movies such as Hud (), for which he won his first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, The Americanization of Emily (), the American Civil War comedy Advance to the Rear (), an episode of The Fugitive (), I Never Sang for My Father (), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor and The Candidate ().

He won his second Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the comedy-dramaBeing There (). However, Douglas confirmed in one of his final interviews that he refused to attend the 52nd Academy Awards ceremony because he could not bear having to compete against child actor Justin Henry for Kramer vs. Kramer.^[5]

In addition to his Academy Awards, Douglas won a Tony Award for his Broadway lead role in the The Best Man by Gore Vidal and an Emmy for his role in Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.^{[citation needed]}

Douglas' final complete screen appearance was in the horror film Ghost Story.

He died before completing all of his scenes for the film The Hot Touch (); the film had to be edited to compensate for Douglas' incomplete role.^{[citation needed]}

Douglas has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; one for movies located at Hollywood Boulevard and another for television at Hollywood Boulevard.^[6]

Personal life

Douglas, as Hesselberg,^[7] was married briefly to artist Rosalind Hightower, and they had one child, (Melvyn) Gregory Hesselberg,^[8] in ^[7] Hesselberg, an artist, is the father of actress Illeana Douglas.^[8]

In , Douglas married actress-turned-politician Helen Gahagan.

They traveled to Europe that same year, and "were horrified by French and German anti-Semitism". As a result, they became outspoken anti-fascists.^{[citation needed]}

Gahagan Douglas (she began using her husband's name when she entered politics), as a three-term congresswoman, was Richard M.

Nixon's unsuccessful opponent for the United States Senate seat from California in ^[1] Nixon accused Gahagan Douglas of being soft on Communism because of her opposition to the House Un-American Activities Committee. Nixon went so far as to infamously call her "pink right down to her underwear".

It was Gahagan Douglas who popularized Nixon's epithet nickname "Tricky Dick".^[9]

Melvyn and Helen Gahagan Douglas hired architect Roland Coate to design a home for them in on a 3-acre (&#;ha) lot they owned in Outpost Estates, Los Angeles. The result was a one-story, 6,square-foot (&#;m²) home.^[10]

The Douglases had two children: Peter Gahagan Douglas () and Mary Helen Douglas ().

The couple remained married until Helen Gahagan Douglas's death in from cancer.

Helen gahagan Looks like we're missing the following data in en-US or en-US Login to edit. Keyboard Shortcuts. Login to report an issue. Douglas came to prominence in the s as a suave leading man, perhaps best typified by his performance in the romantic comedy Ninotchka with Greta Garbo.

Melvyn Douglas died a year later, in , aged 80, from pneumonia and cardiac complications in New York City.^{[citation needed]}

Broadway roles

Sources: Internet Broadway Database^[11] and Playbill^[12]

• A Free Soul () as Ace Wilfong
• Back Here () as Sergeant "Terry" O'Brien
• Now-a-Days () as Boyd Butler
• Recapture () as Henry C.

  Martin

• Tonight or Never () as the Unknown Gentleman
• No More Ladies () as Sheridan Warren
• Mother Lode () as Carey Ried (also staged)
• De Luxe () as Pat Dantry
• Tapestry In Gray () as Erik Nordgren
• Two Blind Mice () as Tommy Thurston
• The Bird Cage () as Wally Williams
• The Little Blue Light () as Frank
• Glad Tidings () as Steve Whitney
• Time Out for Ginger () as Howard Carol
• Inherit the Wind () as Henry Drummond (replacement)
• The Waltz of the Toreadors () as General St.

  Pé

• Juno () as "Captain" Jack Boyle
• The Gang's All Here () as Griffith P. Hastings
• The Best Man () as William Russell
• Spofford () as Spofford

Douglas also staged Moor Born (), Mother Lode () and Within the Gates () and produced Call Me Mister ().

Filmography

Partial television credits

Source: Internet Movie Database^[13]

Radio appearances

References

Sources

• Douglas, Melvyn; Tom Arthur ().

  See You at the Movies: The Autobiography of Melvyn Douglas. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. ISBN&#;.

External links

Papers

Metadata