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Miles Mander

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Miles Mander

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The son of an English manufacturer, Miles Mander had dabbled in several careers before making his screen bow as an extra in 1918. He'd been a farmer, a novelist, a playwright, a stage director and a cinema exhibitor -- and, if all the stories can be believed, a fight promoter, horse and auto racer, and aviator. He was billed as Luther Miles in his earliest film appearances, reserving his real name for his screenwriting credits. In Hollywood from 1935 on, the weedy, mustachioed Mander made a specialty of portraying old-school-tie Britishers who, for various reasons, had fallen into disgrace. He was never more unsavory than when he portrayed master criminal Giles Conover in the 1945 "Sherlock Holmes" entry The Pearl of Death. Mander also showed up in two separate versions of The Three Musketeers, playing Louis XIII in the 1935 version and Richelieu in the 1939 edition (he also played Aramis in the Musketeers sequel The Man in the Iron Mask [1939]). Shortly after wrapping up his scenes in Imperfect Lady (1947), 57-year-old Miles Mander died of a sudden heart attack. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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Miles Mander

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Miles Mander
Born Lionel Henry Mander
14 May 1888(1888-05-14)
Wolverhampton, England
Died 8 February 1946(1946-02-08) (aged 57)
Los Angeles, California USA
Resting place Ocean View Burial Park, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
Years active 1920–46
Spouse Princess Prativa Devi, dau. of Maharajah Nripendra Narayan of Cooch Behar
Kathren ('Bunty') French

Miles Mander (14 May 1888 – 8 February 1946), born Lionel Henry Mander (and sometimes credited as Luther Miles), was a well-known and versatile English character actor of the early Hollywood cinema, also a film director and producer, and a playwright and novelist.

Contents

Early life

Miles Mander was the second son of Theodore Mander, builder of Wightwick Manor, of the prominent Mander family, industrialists and public servants of Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, in the Midlands of England. He was the younger brother of Sir Geoffrey Mander, the Member of Parliament. He was educated at Harrow School, Middlesex (The Grove House 1901- Easter 1903); Loretto School, Musselburgh (east of Edinburgh) and McGill University, Montreal. But he soon broke away from the predictable mould of business and philanthropy. He was an early aviator, a captain in the Royal Army Service Corps in World War I. He spent his twenties in New Zealand farming sheep, with his uncle, Martin Mander.[1]

Film career

He achieved success as Sir Hugh Boycott in The First Born (1928) which he directed and acted in, and which was based on his own novel and play. He is better remembered for his character portrayals of oily villains, many of them English gentlemen or upper-crust cads - such as Cardinal Richelieu in the musical film The Three Musketeers (1939), a spoof in which the Ritz Brothers played lackeys who substituted for the real Musketeers. In his Hollywood debut, he had portrayed King Louis XIII in the much more serious 1935 version of that same Alexandre Dumas, père classic. Other famous film credits included Wuthering Heights with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, in which he played Mr. Lockwood, the new tenant at the Grange, who is told the story of Cathy and Heathcliff. In the 1933 English version of G.W. Pabst's Adventures of Don Quixote, he played the Duke who invites Don Quixote and Sancho Panza to his castle, and in the original To Be or Not to Be, he was one of the two British officers to whom Robert Stack first reveals his suspicions about the treacherous Professor Siletsky (Stanley Ridges).

Personal life

His first wife was an Indian princess, Princess Prativa Devi, the daughter of the Maharajah Nripendra Narayan of Cooch Behar. His brother Alan married her sister, Princess Sudhira. His second wife was Kathren ('Bunty') French, of Sydney, Australia, with whom he had a son, Theodore. He wrote a book of memoirs and advice to him, To My Son—in Confidence (1934). He died suddenly of a heart attack at the Brown Derby restaurant in Los Angeles, aged 57.

Filmography

As actor

As director

  • The Whistler (1926) short made in DeForest Phonofilm
  • The Sheik of Araby (1926) short made in Phonofilm
  • Knee Deep in Daisies (1926) short made in Phonofilm
  • The Fair Maid of Perth (1926) short made in Phonofilm
  • False Colours (1927) short made in Phonofilm
  • The Sentence of Death (1927) U. S. title His Great Moment, short made in Phonofilm
  • Packing Up (1927) short made in Phonofilm
  • As We Lie (1927) short film made in Phonofilm
  • The First Born (1928)
  • The Woman Between (1931) U.S. title The Woman Decides
  • Fascination (1931)
  • Youthful Folly (1934)
  • The Morals of Marcus (1935)
  • The Flying Doctor (1936)

As writer

  • Lovers in Araby (1924)
  • As We Lie (1927) (story)
  • The First Born (1928)
  • The Woman Between (1931) (known in the US as The Woman Decides)
  • L'Atlantide (1932) directed by G. W. Pabst -- (English version known in the UK as The Mistress of Atlantis (1932) and in the US as The Lost Atlantis)
  • The Lodger (1932) aka The Phantom Fiend (USA)
  • The Morals of Marcus (1935)
  • The Flying Doctor (1936)

As producer

  • The Man Without Desire (1923)
  • Knee Deep in Daisies (1926)
  • The First Born (1928)
  • The Flying Doctor (1936)
  • Watchtower Over Tomorrow (1945) (uncredited)

Sources

  • Miles Mander, To my Son—in Confidence, Faber, 1934
  • Miles Mander, Gentleman by Birth, 1933
  • Sir Geoffrey Le Mesurier Mander (ed), The History of Mander Brothers, Wolverhampton. 1955
  • C. Nicholas Mander, Varnished Leaves: a biography of the Mander Family of Wolverhampton, 1750-1950, Owlpen Press, 2004
  • Patricia Pegg, A Very Private Heritage: the private papers of Samuel Theodore Mander, 1853-1900, Malvern, 1996

Notes

  1. ^ "MILES MANDER.". The West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954) (Perth, WA: National Library of Australia): p. 19. 6 November 1935. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article32902836. Retrieved 19 February 2012. 

External links

Portal icon Biography portal
The films of Miles Mander
1920s
1930s

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

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