Ian Hunter (actor)
| Ian Hunter | |
|---|---|
in Gallant Sons (1940)
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| Born |
13 June 1900 Cape Town, British Cape Colony |
| Died | 22 September 1975 (aged 75) London, England |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1924–1963 |
| Spouse(s) | Catherine Casha Pringle (m.1917–1975; his death; 2 children) |
Ian Hunter (13 June 1900 – 22 September 1975) was an English character actor.
Ian Hunter was born in the Kenilworth area of Cape Town, South Africa where he spent his childhood. In his teen years he and his parents returned to the family in England to live. Sometime between that arrival and the early years of World War I, Hunter began exploring acting. But in 1917 - and being only 17 - he joined the army to serve in France for the remainder of the First World War.
On his return Hunter studied under Elsie Fogerty at the Central School of Speech and Drama, then based in the Royal Albert Hall, London. Within two years he did indeed make his stage-acting debut. Hunter would never forget that the stage was the thing, when the lure of movie making called - he would always return to the stage throughout his career. With a jovial face perpetually on the verge of smiling and a friendly and mildly English accent, Hunter had "good guy" lead written all over him. He decided to work in British silent films taking a part in Not for Sale (1924) for British director W.P. Kellino.
Hunter then made his first trip to the U.S. - Broadway, not Hollywood - because Basil Dean, the British actor and director, was producing Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The School for Scandal at the Knickerbocker Theater - unfortunately the production folded after one performance. It was a more concerted effort with film the next year back in Britain, again with Kellino. He then met the film director Alfred Hitchcock in 1927 and was featured in Hitchcock's The Ring (1927) - about the boxing game - and stayed for the director's Downhill (US: When Boys Leave Home, 1927) and Easy Virtue (1928), based on the Noël Coward play. By late 1928 he returned to Broadway for only a months run in the original comedy "Olympia" but stayed on in America to work in Hollywood on Syncopation (1929) for RKO, his first sound film.
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