Gregory Ratoff

Gregory Ratoff
Ratoff as Ipswich in Professional Sweetheart (1933)
Born	ca. 1893 (1893) Samara, Russia
Died	December 14, 1960 (1960-12-15) (aged 67) Solothurn, Switzerland
Occupation	Film director, actor and producer
Years active	1921-1961
Spouse(s)	Eugenie Leontovich (1923-1949; divorced)

Gregory Ratoff (c. April 1893 – December 14, 1960) was a Russian-born American film director, actor and producer. His most famous role as an actor was as producer Max Fabian in All About Eve (1950).

Ratoff was born in Samara, Russia, near St. Petersburg, to Jewish parents, Sophie (née Markison) and Benjamin Ratner. His mother claimed to have been born on September 1, 1878, but was married on June 14, 1894, when she would have been 15, to Benjamin Ratner (born 1864 – died 19??), with whom she had four children, the eldest of whom was Gregory, whose date of birth she gave as April 7, 1895 (see [1]) but later April 20 was cited as Gregory Ratoff's birthdate, and the year was given as 1897.

Sophie Ratner would later adopt her son's stage surname (Ratoff) when she herself became a naturalized United States citizen. She died on August 27, 1955, and her date of birth is given as September 13, 1877 in the "California, Death Index, 1940-1997".

Ratoff was pursuing a law degree at the University of St. Petersburg until his education was interrupted by service in the Czar's army in World War I. After the war, he abandoned law to join the Moscow Art Theater, where he began to make a name for himself as an actor. An eye-witness to the chaos of the Bolshevik Revolution, Ratoff fled Russia with his parents in 1922 and settled in Paris, where he also wooed Eugenia Leontovitch (later known as actress Eugenie Leontovich), the daughter of a Czarist army officer, who, too, had escaped to Paris. They were both performing in a Paris production of the Russe Revue in 1922 when the famous New York impresario, Lee Shubert, founder of the Shubert Theaters, brought this show to Broadway, and the young couple along with it. They decided to stay in the United States, and the couple married on January 19, 1923. Leontovich gave Ratoff's year of birth as 1896 in her naturalization papers but did not include the month or day. A border crossing manifest, dated September 23, 1922, gives both her age and that of Gregory Ratner as 29, indicating 1893 as the year of birth of both (see [2]).