| Miles Mander | |
|---|---|
| Born | Lionel Henry Mander May 14, 1888 Wolverhampton, England |
| Died | February 8, 1946 (aged 57) Los Angeles, California USA |
| Years active | 1920–46 |
| Spouse | Princess Prativa Devi, dau. of Maharajah Nripendra Narayan of Cooch Behar Kathren ('Bunty') French |
Miles Mander (May 14, 1888 – February 8, 1946), born Lionel Henry Mander (and sometimes credited as Luther Miles), was a well-known and versatile English character actor of the early Hollywood cinema, also a film director and producer, and a playwright and novelist.
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Miles Mander was the second son of Theodore Mander, builder of Wightwick Manor, of the prominent Mander family, industrialists and public servants of Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, in the Midlands of England. He was the younger brother of Sir Geoffrey Mander, the Member of Parliament. He was educated at Harrow School, Middlesex (The Grove House 1901- Easter 1903), Loretto School, East of Edinburgh and McGill University, Montreal. But he soon broke away from the predictable mould of business and philanthropy. He was an early aviator, a captain in the Royal Army Service Corps in World War I. He spent his 20s in New Zealand farming sheep, with his uncle, Martin Mander.
He achieved success as Sir Hugh Boycott in The First Born (1928) which he directed and acted in, and which was based on his own novel and play. He is better remembered for his character portrayals of oily villains, many of them English gentlemen or upper-crust cads - such as Cardinal Richelieu in the musical film The Three Musketeers (1939), a spoof in which the Ritz Brothers played lackeys who substituted for the real Musketeers. In his Hollywood debut, he had portrayed King Louis XIII in the much more serious 1935 version of that same Alexandre Dumas, père classic. Other famous film credits included Wuthering Heights with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, in which he played Mr. Lockwood, the new tenant at the Grange, who is told the story of Cathy and Heathcliff. In the 1933 English version of G.W. Pabst's Adventures of Don Quixote, he played the Duke who invites Don Quixote and Sancho Panza to his castle, and in the original To Be or Not to Be, he was one of the two British officers to whom Robert Stack first reveals his suspicions about the treacherous Professor Siletsky (Stanley Ridges).
His first wife was an Indian princess, Princess Prativa Devi, the daughter of the Maharajah Nripendra Narayan of Cooch Behar. His brother Alan married her sister, Princess Sudhira. His second wife was Kathren ('Bunty') French, of Sydney, Australia, with whom he had a son, Theodore. He wrote a book of memoirs and advice to him, To My Son—in Confidence (1934). He died suddenly of a heart attack at the Brown Derby restaurant in Los Angeles, aged 57.