Donald Crisp
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| Donald Crisp | |
 from the trailer for the film The Gay Sisters (1942). |
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| Birth name | George William Crisp |
| Born | July 27, 1882 London, England |
| Died | January 21, 1974, aged 91 Van Nuys, California, USA |
Donald Crisp (July 27, 1882 – May 25, 1974) was an Academy Award winning English film actor. He was also an early motion picture scriptwriter, producer and director.
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[edit] Early Life and Coming to America
Donald Crisp was born George William Crisp in London, at the family home in Bow (historically known as Stratford) on July 27, 1882. He was one of eight children (4 boys and 4 girls) born to James and Elizabeth Crisp. He was educated at both Eton College and the University of Oxford.
Prior to graduation from college, Crisp served as a trooper in the 10th Hussars in the Boer War. This experience, among other things, allowed him to cross paths with a young Winston Churchill just at the start of Churchill's long political career. According to family memories, Donald's brother-in-law James Needham provided him with the fare to travel to America in 1906.
[edit] Early career
While on the boat coming to America, Crisp's singing talents during a ship's concert caught the attention of opera impresario John C. Fisher who immediately offered him a job with his company. It was while touring with the company in the United States and Cuba that Crisp first became interested in the pursuing a career in the theatre. By 1910 Crisp was working as a stage manager for the renowned entertainer, composer, playwright, and director George M. Cohan. It was during this time he met and became friends with soon-to-be legendary director D.W. Griffith, himself a former stage actor who was now looking to direct films. When Griffith went to seek his fortune in Hollywood in 1912 Crisp accompanied him.
From 1908 to 1930 Crisp, in addition to directing dozens of films, would also appear in nearly 100 silent films, many in bit or small parts. One notable exception was his casing by Griffith as General Ulysses S. Grant in Griffith's landmark film Birth of a Nation in 1915. Another was his acclaimed role in the 1919 film Broken Blossoms as the brutal and abusive father "Battling Burrows" opposite Lillian Gish.
[edit] Career as a Director
Crisp worked as an assistant to Griffith for several years and learned much during this time from Griffith, an early master of movie story telling who was influential in advancing a number early techniques such as cross cutting in editing his films. This experience fostered a similar passion in Crisp to become a director in his own right. His first directing credit was Little Country Mouse made in 1914. Owing to the assembly line manner in which films were made in the early years of movie making, many directors (and actors) would find themselves turning out a dozen or more films in a single year. Over the next fifteen years Crisp would direct some 70 films in all, among the most notable are The Navigator (1924) with Buster Keaton and Don Q, Son of Zorro (1925) with Douglas Fairbanks.
When asked later by an interviewer on why he eventually gave up directing and returned full time to an acting career, Crisp commented that directing had become extremely wearisome because he was so often called upon, if not forced, to do favors for studio chiefs by agreeing to employ their relatives in his films. His final directorial effort was the 1930 film The Runaway Bride starring Mary Astor.
[edit] Simultaneous Pursuits: Serving His Country
While pursuing a dual career in acting and directing Crisp managed to serve in the war effort against Germany and her allies during the First World War (1914-1918). In between working for Griffith, other producers, and his many acting roles, Crisp managed to return to England where he served in the army intelligence section. During the Second World War (1939-1945) Crisp again answered the call to duty at a time when his acting career was at its peak. This time he served in U.S. Army Reserves where he rose to the rank of colonel.
[edit] Return to Acting and Movie Stardom
With the advent of sound in films, coupled with his acknowledged weariness for directing any longer, Crisp moved entirely to acting after 1930 where he became a much sought after character actor. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s he appeared in a wide range of roles along side some of the era's biggest stars including Clark Gable in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Laurence Olivier in Wuthering Heights (1939), and Gregory Peck in Valley of Decision (1945).
A versatile supporting actor, Crisp could be equally good in either lovable or sinister roles. For example, during the same period he was playing loving father figures or charming old codgers in classic films like National Velvet and Lassie Come Home he turned in an acclaimed performance as Commander Beach, the tormented presumptive grandfather in Lewis Allen's The Uninvited released in 1944. Undoubtedly, however, Crisp's most memorable role was as the taciturn but loving father in How Green Was My Valley directed by John Ford. The film received ten Oscar nominations, winning five, including Best Picture with Crisp winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 1941.
[edit] A Behind the Scenes Hollywood Powerbroker
While widely known to audiences as a talented actor and director, few outside the movie community realized, then or now, that beyond this work, Crisp was one of the most influential people in Hollywood, wielding more power than most directors and even more than many producers or studio executives.
Crisp was one of Hollywood's gatekeepers, one of individuals who played an important role in ensuring that the business side of the industry worked. Crisp's extensive business, military, and entertainment experiences, including being a production and studio executive lent themselves well to this task. He would become a highly valued advisor whose clear-headedness and forward thinking proved invaluable to the Bank of America, which was one of the leading sources of working capital for the movie industry for many years (an industry whose life blood was loans). Crisp would serve on the bank's advisory board for several decades, including a stint as its chairman. In this role he had the ear of its board of directors, and many of the movies eventually financed by the during the 1930s and 1940s got their most important approval from Crisp.
[edit] Later Years and Place in Film History
Not surprisingly, Crisp eventually became one of the more well-off members of the film industry. His "banker's sobriety", extensive contacts, and clear-headedness allowed him to make good investments, particularly in the real estate market. He continued to appear in films throughout the 1950s and into the early 1960s. During his more than half century as an actor in both the early silent and later the sound era, he may have appeared in as many 400 short reel and feature length productions. His final screen role was as Grandpa Spencer opposite Henry Fonda and Maureen O'Hara in the 1963 film Spencer's Mountain. This film, adapted from the novel by Earl Hamner was the basis for the popular television series The Waltons which would premier a decade later in 1972.
Crisp was in his eighties by the time he quit acting entirely, continuing to work long after he needed to financially simply because he enjoyed it. He was married twice, divorced from his first wife in 1919. He later married film screenwriter Jane Murfin who he was divorced from in 1944. Crisp died in 1974 a few months short of his 92nd birthday due to complications following a series of strokes. Crisp can rightly be called a motion picture pioneer. In addition to being one of the premier character actors of his era, he left behind an extensive list of contributions to the film industry he worked to promote for more than fifty years.
| Preceded by Walter Brennan for The Westerner |
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor 1941 for How Green Was My Valley |
Succeeded by Van Heflin for Johnny Eager |
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