Sydney Greenstreet

Sydney Greenstreet
Greenstreet in Casablanca (1942)
Born	Sydney Hughes Greenstreet (1879-12-27)27 December 1879 Sandwich, Kent, England
Died	18 January 1954(1954-01-18) (aged 74) Hollywood, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Complications from Bright's disease and diabetes
Resting place	Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1902–1951
Spouse(s)	Dorothy Marie Ogden (1918–1954; his death)
Children	John Ogden Greenstreet (1920-2004)

Sydney Hughes Greenstreet (27 December 1879 – 18 January 1954) was a British actor who did not work in films until the age of 62, but enjoyed a run of notable hits in a Hollywood career lasting just eight years. He is best remembered for his Warner Bros. films with Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre, which include The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942), and Passage to Marseille (1944). He became a naturalised United States citizen in 1925. He portrayed Nero Wolfe on radio from 1950 to 1951.

Greenstreet was born in Sandwich, Kent, the son of Ann (née Baker) and John Jarvis Greenstreet, a tanner. He had seven siblings. He left home at the age of 18 to make his fortune as a Ceylon tea planter, but drought forced him out of business. He began managing a brewery and, to escape boredom, took acting lessons.

Greenstreet's stage debut was as a murderer in a 1902 production of a Sherlock Holmes story at the Marina Theatre, Ramsgate, Kent. He toured Britain with Ben Greet's Shakespearean company, and in 1905, he made his New York debut. Thereafter he appeared in such plays as a revival of As You Like It in 1916 with revered actress Margaret Anglin. Greenstreet appeared in numerous plays in Britain 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 as Kasper Gutman ("The Fat Man") co-starring with Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon. The film also featured Peter Lorre, as the twitchy Joel Cairo, a pairing that would prove durable. The two men appeared in some nine films altogether, including Casablanca (1942), with Greenstreet as crooked club owner Signor Ferrari (for which he received a salary of $3,750 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, Peter Lorre, and Claude Rains, The Mask of Dimitrios (1944), The Conspirators (1944, with Hedy Lamarr and Paul Henreid), Hollywood Canteen (1944), Three Strangers (1946) and The Verdict (1946). In the last two in the list, and The Mask of Dimitrios, Greenstreet received top billing. The actor played roles in both dramatic films, such as William Makepeace Thackeray in Devotion (1946) and witty performances in screwball comedies, for instance Alexander Yardley in Christmas in Connecticut (1944). Near the end of his film career, Greenstreet played opposite Joan Crawford in Flamingo Road (1949).