Lionel Atwill
Acting
Born 1885-02-27
Died 1946-04-22
Croydon, London, England, UK
81 credits
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Lionel Atwill (1 March 1885 – 22 April 1946) was an English stage and film actor born in Croydon, London, England.
He studied architecture before his stage debut at the Garrick Theatre, London in 1904. He become a star in Broadway theatre by 1918, and made his screen debut in 1919. He acted on the stage in Australia but was most famous for his U.S. horror roles in the 1930s. His two most memorable parts were as the crazed, disfigured sculptor in Mystery of the Wax Museum (Warner Brothers, 1933), and as Inspector Krogh in Son of Frankenstein (1939), memorably sent up by Kenneth Mars in Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein (1974).
When he was not cast in macabre roles, Atwill often appeared in the 1930s as righteous-minded authority figures. For example, in 1937's less memorable The Wrong Road for RKO, investigator Atwill persuades a young, bank-robbing ingenue played by Helen Mack and her boyfriend Richard Cromwell to return their ill-gotten $100,000 and give up a life of crime. Two of Atwill's other notable non-horror roles were opposite his contemporary Basil Rathbone in films featuring Arthur Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes, including a role as Dr. James Mortimer in 20th Century Fox's 1939 film rendition of the Conan Doyle novel The Hound of the Baskervilles, and the 1943 Universal Studios film Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon, in which he played Holmes' archenemy and super-villain, Professor Moriarty.
Atwill remained a stalwart of the Universal horror films until his career flagged in the 1940s because of a widely publicized sex scandal in 1941, during the investigation of which he was charged in 1942 with perjury at a trial in which Atwill had been accused of staging a sex orgy at his home.
He died while working on the 1946 film serial Lost City of the Jungle. His ashes were once inurned in Chapel of the Pines Crematory.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Lionel Atwill, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
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Filmography
— top 60 of 81
Acting
59 credits
To Be or Not to Be
Captain Blood
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
Crime, Inc.
House of Dracula
Man-Made Monster
House of Frankenstein
The Ghost of Frankenstein
Son of Frankenstein
The Hound of the Baskervilles
Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon
Doctor X
Boom Town
Captain America
Three Comrades
Mystery of the Wax Museum
Johnny Apollo
The Great Waltz
The Last Train from Madrid
Murders in the Zoo
One More River
Balalaika
Mark of the Vampire
The Devil Is a Woman
The Three Musketeers
Rendezvous
Frankenstein: A Cinematic Scrapbook
Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise
Pardon My Sarong
Charlie Chan in Panama
The Great Profile
Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation
The Vampire Bat
The Murder Man
The Gorilla
Fog Island
The Sun Never Sets
Junior G-Men of the Air
The Firebird
The Secret of Madame Blanche
The Song of Songs
Secret of the Blue Room
Night Monster
Girl in 313
Doom of Dracula
The Horror Show
Beggars in Ermine
The Horror of It All
The Sphinx
The Wrong Road
The Road Back
The Age of Innocence
Stamboul Quest
Raiders of Ghost City
The Great Garrick
The Mad Doctor of Market Street
The Silent Witness
Lady in the Death House
Dead End Kids Go To War
Other credits
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