Ronald Colman

Ronald Colman (1891-1958), British actor, born in Richmond, Surrey. His career as a Hollywood leading man traversed silent and sound films. Colman enlisted in the British army at the outbreak of World War I, but he was invalided out two years later with a damaged ankle. Earlier experience as an amateur actor led him into professional theatre and by 1918 he was playing the lead on the London stage in a re-run of Eugene Brieux’s Damaged Goods. Within a year he was in films, the first of which was the long-forgotten The Toilers (1919), and by 1920 he had moved to the United States.

After a few small parts he was spotted by Lillian Gish, who chose him to play opposite her in The White Sister (1923). The producer Samuel Goldwyn, recognizing his potential, quickly put him under contract with MGM and teamed him not only with Gish, but with Constance Talmadge, Doris Kenyon, Blanche Sweet, and, in a series of great screen romances, with Vilma Banky. The Dark Angel (1925), in which Colman plays Banky’s blinded lover, and Stella Dallas (1925) opposite Belle Bennett, are among the most enduring films of Hollywood romantic cinema.

Once sound was introduced, the combinations of Colman’s screen charm, good looks, and distinctive voice brought him even greater popularity. He worked with master directors on such films as Arrowsmith (1931, John Ford), Cyrana (1932, King Vidor), Lost Horizon (1937, Frank Capra), The Light that Failed (1939, William Wellman), The Talk of the Town (1942, George Stevens), Random Harvest (1942, Mervyn Le Roy), and A Double Life (1948, George Cukor), for which he won the Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Actor. One of his most famous roles was as the dissolute lawyer turned self-sacrificing hero in Jack Conway’s film of A Tale of Two Cities (1935).