Louis Calhern

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
Louis Calhern

from the trailer for Annie Get Your Gun (1950)
Birth name Carl Henry Vogt
Born February 19, 1895
Brooklyn, New York, USA
Died May 12, 1956
Tokyo, Japan

Louis Calhern (February 19, 1895 - May 12, 1956) was an American stage and screen actor.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Calhern was born Carl Henry Vogt. His family left New York City while he was still a child and moved to St. Louis, Missouri where he grew up. While playing high school football, a stage manager from a touring theatrical stock company spotted him, and hired him as an extra. Just prior to World War I, Calhern decided to move back to New York to pursue an acting career. He began as a prop boy and bit player with touring companies and burlesque companies. His burgeoning career was interrupted by the war and he served overseas in the military during World War I.

[edit] Career

He became a matinee idol by virtue of a play titled The Cobra, and soon began to act in films. In the early 30s he was primarily cast as a character actor in Hollywood, while he continued to play leading roles on stage. He reached his peak in the 1950s as an MGM contract player. Among his most memorable roles were three that he played in 1950 - a singing one as Buffalo Bill in the film version of Annie Get Your Gun (musical), the double-crossing lawyer and sugar-daddy to Marilyn Monroe in John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle, and his Oscar-nominated role as Oliver Wendell Holmes in The Magnificent Yankee (re-creating his stage role), as well as his portrayal of the title role in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's film of Julius Caesar in 1953. In addition to The Magnificent Yankee, he had Broadway successes in Jacobowsky and the Colonel (1944) and in the title role of King Lear (1951).

[edit] Marriages

Calhern was married four times, to Ilka Chase from 1926 to 1927, to Julia Hoyt from 1927 to 1932, to Natalie Schafer from 1933 to 1942, and Marianne Stewart from 1946 to 1955. All four marriages ended in divorce.

[edit] Death

Calhern died of a sudden heart attack in Tokyo, while filming The Teahouse of the August Moon. He was replaced in the film by Paul Ford, who had played Calhern's role in the original stage version. By an odd coincidence, when playing Buffalo Bill in Annie Get Your Gun, Calhern had replaced Frank Morgan, who had died of a sudden heart attack during the making of that film. Calhern is buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] External link

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../l/o/u/Louis_Calhern_eb6b.html"
In other languages