Alan Mowbray
| Alan Mowbray | |
|---|---|
from the trailer for Topper Takes a Trip (1939)
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| Born |
Alfred Ernest Allen 18 August 1896 London, England |
| Died | 25 March 1969 (aged 72) Hollywood, California, U.S. |
| Years active | 1922–1969 |
| Spouse(s) | Lorraine Carpenter (1927-69) (his death) |
| Children | 2 |
Alan Mowbray MM (born Alfred Ernest Allen; 18 August 1896 – 25 March 1969) was an English stage and film actor who found success in Hollywood.
Born Alfred Ernest Allen in London, England, he served with distinction in the British Army in the First World War, being awarded the Military Medal for bravery. He began his stage career in London in 1922, as an actor and stage manager. Mowbray applied for transfer to the Royal Air Force which was granted just six days before the war ended. This placed him in London on Armistice Day. His service came to an end when the Royal Air Force wanted another seven years out of him. In 1923 he arrived in the United States and was soon acting with New York stock companies. He debuted on Broadway in The Sport of Kings (1926); in 1929 he wrote, directed and starred in the unsuccessful Dinner is Served.
Mowbray made his film debut in God's Gift to Women (1931) playing a butler, a role in which he was thereafter often cast. He appeared in five more pictures that year, notably portraying George Washington in Alexander Hamilton. In 1935 he played one of the male leads in Becky Sharp, the first feature-length film in full-color Technicolor, as well as playing the lead in the farcical Night Life of the Gods, based on a Thorne Smith novel. It was for another Thorne Smith–derived film, Topper (1937), that Mowbray may be best remembered; he played Topper's butler, Wilkins, a role he reprised the following year in Topper Takes a Trip. Throughout the 1930s and '40s Mowbray worked steadily, appearing in over 120 films.
In the 1950s Mowbray's film roles decreased and he began to appear on television. He played the title role in the DuMont TV series Colonel Humphrey Flack, which first aired in 1953–54 and was revived in 1958–59. In the 1954–55 television season Mowbray played Mr. Swift, the drama coach of the character Mickey Mulligan, in NBC's short-lived situation comedy The Mickey Rooney Show: Hey, Mulligan. He continued to appear occasionally in films.
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