Francis L. Sullivan

Francis Loftus Sullivan (January 6, 1903, Wandsworth, London - November 19, 1956, New York City)^[1] was an English film and stage actor. He attended Stonyhurst, the Jesuit public school in Lancashire, England whose alumni include Charles Laughton and Arthur Conan Doyle.

A heavily built man with a striking double-chin and a deep voice, some of his notable film roles include Mr. Bumble in Oliver Twist (1948) and a supporting role in the film noir Night and the City (1950). Sullivan also played the part of Jaggers in two versions of Charles Dickens's Great Expectations - in 1934 and 1946. He appeared in a fourth Dickens film, the 1935 Universal Pictures version of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, in which he played Crisparkle.

In 1938, he was featured in The Citadel, starring Robert Donat, and a decade later, he played the role of Pierre Cauchon in the technicolor version of Joan of Arc, starring Ingrid Bergman. Also in 1938 he starred in a revival of the Stokes' brothers play Oscar Wilde at London's Arts Theatre.

Sullivan also acted in light comedies, notably My Favorite Spy (1951), starring Bob Hope and Hedy Lamarr, in which he played an enemy agent, and the comedy Fiddlers Three (1944), portraying Nero. He also played the role of Pothinus in the 1945 film version of George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra. The film was directed by Gabriel Pascal, and was the last film personally supervised by Shaw himself. Sullivan later reprised the role in a stage revival of the play.

Sullivan, who eventually became a naturalized US citizen, won a Tony Award in 1955 for the Agatha Christie play Witness for the Prosecution. Earlier, he had played Hercule Poirot in London in the Christie play, Black Coffee (1930).

Death

He died of a heart attack, aged 53 (some sources claim he died from an unspecified "lung ailment").

Filmography

References

External links

• Francis L. Sullivan at Find a Grave
• Francis L. Sullivan at the Internet Broadway Database
• Francis L. Sullivan at the Internet Movie Database