<ptext-align:>Edmund Gwenn (26 September 1877 – 6 September 1959) was an English theatre and film actor. He is perhaps best remembered for his role as Kris Kringle in the 1947 film,
Miracle on 34th Street
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<h2text-align:>Background
<ptext-align:>Born Edmund John Kellaway in Wandsworth, London and educated at St. Olave's School and later at King's College London, Gwenn began his acting career in the theatre in 1895. Playwright George Bernard Shaw was impressed with his acting, casting him in the first production of
Man and Superman, and subsequently in five more of his plays. Gwenn's career was interrupted by his military service during World War I; however, after the war, he began appearing in films in London. (Cecil Kellaway was his cousin and Arthur Chesney was his brother.)
<h2text-align:>Career
<ptext-align:>Gwenn appeared in more than eighty films during his career, including the Greer Garson/Laurence Olivier version of
Pride and Prejudice (1940),
Cheers for Miss Bishop,
Of Human Bondage, and
The Keys of the Kingdom. George Cukor's
Sylvia Scarlett (1935) marked his first appearance in a Hollywood film, as Katharine Hepburn's father; - his final British film, as a capitalist trying to take over a family brewery in
Cheer Boys Cheer (1939) is credited with being the first authentic Ealing comedy. He settled in Hollywood in 1940 and became part of its British colony. For his Santa role in
Miracle on 34th Street, which was ranked ninth by the American Film Institute on a list of America's 100 most inspiring films, Gwenn won anAcademy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Upon receiving his Oscar, he said "Now I know there is a Santa Claus!" He is the only person to win an acting Academy Award for playing the role of Santa Claus. Gwenn later reprised the Kris Kringle role on three different adaptations of
Miracle on 34th Street for radio, including a 1948 performance on
Lux Radio Theater.
<ptext-align:>He received a second Oscar nomination for his role in
Mister 880 (1950). Near the end of his career he played one of the main roles in Alfred Hitchcock's
The Trouble with Harry (1955). He has a small but hugely memorable role as a Cockney assassin in another American Hitchcock film,
Foreign Correspondent (1940), the year he moved to Hollywood. He is one of many actors whose Hollywood careers were helped by Hitchcock.
<ptext-align:>In theatre, he starred in a 1942 production on Broadway of Anton Chekhov's
Three Sisters, which also starred Judith Anderson and Ruth Gordon. It was produced by and starred Katherine Cornell. Time magazine proclaimed it "a dream production by anybody's reckoning — the most glittering cast the theatre has seen, commercially, in this generation."[1]
<ptext-align:>In 1954, Gwenn played Dr. Harold Medford in the classic science fiction film
Them! with James Arness and James Whitmore.
<h2text-align:>Death
<ptext-align:>Edmund Gwenn died from pneumonia after suffering a stroke, in Woodland Hills, California, twenty days before his 82nd birthday. According to several sources, his last words, when a friend at his bedside remarked that "It is hard to die," were: "But it is harder to do comedy." However, a very similar deathbed saying was earlier attributed to a similarly named 19th century English actor, Edmund Kean, so the association of the words with Gwenn may be erroneous. Gwenn was cremated and his ashes are stored in the vault at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles, California. Edmund Gwenn has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1751 Vine Street for his contribution to motion pictures.
Source: Wikipedia
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