• Born: 1884 in England
• Died: 1975 in California
• Occupation: Actor
• Active: '20s-'50s
• Major Genres: Comedy, Crime
• Career Highlights: The Tall Stranger, It, Sherlock Holmes and the Spider Woman
• First Major Screen Credit: Handle with Care (1922)

Biography

Not to be confused with the film editor of the same name, British character actor William Austin made his Hollywood debut in Edward Everett Horton's 1923 film version of Ruggles of Red Gap. Together with Claud Allister, Austin became one of Hollywood's favorite "silly ass" Englishmen in the talkie period, usually armed with monocle and high-pitched laugh. He worked at every studio, in any kind of film, playing roles ranging from the epicene hospital patient who is "all aflutter" in the Laurel and Hardy two-reeler County Hospital (1932) to the humorless husband of divorce-bound Ginger Rogers in The Gay Divorcee (1934). He also made occasional return trips to England to appear in such films as The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) (as the Duke of Cleves). One of William Austin's last film assignments before his retirement in the mid-1940s was as Alfred the Butler in the 1942 Columbia serial Batman. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An Eye for an Eye Buy this Movie	The Atomic Submarine Buy this Movie	The Bat Buy this Movie	Queen of Outer Space Buy this Movie
Dino Buy this Movie	Kansas Pacific Buy this Movie	Flat Top Buy this Movie	Ghost Chasers Buy this Movie

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• Born: March 2, 1778
• Birthplace: Lunenburg, MA
• Died: 1841

William Austin's most famous work was the short story, Peter Rugg, The Missing Man, a tale of a man who took 50 years to drive to Boston in a storm. The story was said to have been the inspiration for Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle.

Austin graduated from Harvard University in 1798, and the following year he sailed on the USS Constitution, serving as a chaplain and teacher. He went to England and studied law at London's Lincoln's Inn. In 1904, Austin published his Letters from London, which included interviews with prominent residents of London, as well as his comments on British institutions and law.

Austin had returned to Charlestown, MA, in 1903, where he practiced law and became involved in politics. He was elected five times as the delegate of his city in the General Court of Massachusetts, between 1811 and 1834. He also represented Middlesex County in the Senate of Massachusetts during the 1820 Convention then in charge of the redrafting of the State Constitution.

Austin married Charlotte Williams in 1807; she died in 1820, and in October 1822, he married Lucy Jones. Austin fathered fourteen children with his two wives.

Most Famous Works

• Peter Rugg, The Missing Man (1824)

(b Lawton, ok, 18 Jan 1920). American musicologist. Educated at Harvard, he began teaching at Cornell University in 1947. He specializes in the music of Russia and the USA and in 20th-century music; his Music in the 20th Century (1966) is a broad survey up to 1950, notable for its francophile standpoint.

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(1778-1841)

1804	Letters from London. The future successful Boston lawyer, legislator, and writer of tales supplies descriptions of British lawyers and statesmen as viewed by a New Englander, based on Austin's own observations while studying law abroad.
1824	Peter Rugg, the Missing Man. A fable about a Boston man whose attempt to drive to the city in a storm takes him fifty years. Austin's best-known story, it becomes a part of New England folklore, is later used by Louise Imogen Guiney and Amy Lowell, and may have influenced Hawthorne.

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