Everything about Sidney Greenstreet totally explained
Sydney Hughes Greenstreet (
December 27 1879 –
January 18 1954) was an
English actor.
Biography
Greenstreet was born in
Sandwich,
Kent,
England, the son of a leather merchant, and had seven siblings. He left home at age 18 to make his fortune as a
Ceylon tea planter, but drought forced him out of business and back to England. He managed a brewery and, to escape boredom, took acting lessons. His stage debut was as a murderer called Craigen in a
1902 production of a
Sherlock Holmes entry by Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle at the Marina Theatre in Ramsgate, Kent. He toured England with
Ben Greet's Shakespearian company, and in
1905, he made his
New York debut. Thereafter, Greenstreet appeared in numerous plays in England and America, working through most of the 1930s with
Alfred Lunt and
Lynn Fontanne at the
Theatre Guild. Throughout his stage career, his parts ranged from musical comedy to Shakespeare, and years of such versatile acting on two continents led to many offers to appear in films. He refused until he was 62.
In
1941, Greenstreet began working for
Warner Bros. His debut film role was also his most famous: Kasper Gutman ("The Fat Man") in
The Maltese Falcon, which co-starred
Peter Lorre as the twitchy Joel Cairo, a pairing that would prove profitable and long-lasting for Warner Bros. The duo appeared in nine films together, including
Casablanca as crooked club owner Signor Ferrari (for which he received a salary of $3750 per week for seven weeks), as well as
Background to Danger (1943, with George Raft),
Passage to Marseille (1944, reteaming him with
Casablanca stars
Humphrey Bogart and
Claude Rains),
The Mask of Dimitrios (1944, receiving top billing),
The Conspirators (1944, with Hedy Lamarr and Paul Henreid),
Hollywood Canteen (1944),
Three Strangers (1946, receiving top billing), and
The Verdict (1946, with top billing). After a mere eight years, in
1949, Greenstreet's film career ended with
Malaya, in which he was billed third, after
Spencer Tracy and
James Stewart. In those eight years, he worked with stars ranging from
Clark Gable to
Ava Gardner to
Joan Crawford. Author
Tennessee Williams wrote his one-act play
The Last of My Solid Gold Watches with Greenstreet in mind, and dedicated it to him.
In 1950 and 1951, Greenstreet played
Nero Wolfe on the
NBC radio program
The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe, based loosely on the rotund detective genius created by
Rex Stout.
Greenstreet suffered from
diabetes and
Bright's disease, a kidney disorder. Five years after leaving films, Greenstreet died in
1954 from complications arising from his diabetes. He is interred in
Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, in
Glendale, California in the Utility Columbarium area of the Great Mausoleum, which isn't accessible to the public. He was survived by his only child, John Ogden Greenstreet, born out of Sydney's marriage to Dorothy Marie Ogden. John Ogden Greenstreet died
March 4,
2004 at age 84.
Sydney is the great-uncle of actor
Mark Greenstreet.
As a tribute to Greenstreet, the crimeboss Hector Lemans in the computer game
Grim Fandango was based on him. Jim Ward voiced the character, and even copied Greenstreet's unmistakable evil laugh.
Filmography
Further Information
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