Romney Brent

Romney Brent (26 January 1902 – 24 September 1976) was a Mexican actor, director and dramatist. Most of his career was on stage in North America, but in the 1930s he was frequently seen on the London stage, on television and in films.

Born Romulo Larralde in Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico, Brent's father was a diplomat, and so he was educated in several countries, especially in New York City.

He studied for the stage under Theodore Komisarjevsky and began work as an actor with the Theatre Guild in He Who Gets Slapped when he was 20 and later that year was on Broadway in their production of The Lucky One by A. A. Milne. He established a reputation in "gentle, ingratiating" roles, such as the Lion in George Bernard Shaw's Androcles and the Lion, the worried groom in Shaw's Getting Married and Launcelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice. In 1925–26, he appeared in two seasons of the long-running musical revue Garrick Gaieties on Broadway. Another Broadway success was in The Little Show in 1925–30.

In 1932, in London, he appeared in Noël Coward's revue Words and Music as compère, as Stanhope in a parody of Journey's End, and as a missionary in a sketch in which he sang Coward's famous song "Mad Dogs and Englishmen". While in London, he directed a Herbert Farjeon revue and wrote the book for Cole Porter's Nymph Errant. In 1933 Brent was cast as Paul, Duc de Chaucigny-Varennes in Coward's Conversation Piece but struggled with the role and was replaced by Coward himself, to whom Brent gladly handed it over, adding "providing you let me still come to rehearsals and watch you find out what a bloody awful part it is."

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