Anthony Dawson (October 18, 1916 – January 8, 1992), was a Scottish-born actor, best known for his supporting roles in British films.
Although born in Edinburgh, he was a very English actor, and his tall, lean body and gaunt sinister features often led him to being cast as villains.
Making his film debut in 1943's They Met in the Dark, he went onto appear in such classic British films as The Way to the Stars (1945), The Queen of Spades (1948), and The Wooden Horse (1950), before relocating to America in the early 1950s.
It was while there that he gave his most memorable performance in Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder (1954), playing C. A. Swann/Captain Lestgate. In the film he is blackmailed by Ray Milland's character Tony Wendice into murdering his wife Margot (Grace Kelly). In his unpublished memoirs, Rambling Recollections, he reminisced about getting the part:
... I had never met Hitchcock before, and yet he was about to do me the most fantastic good turn I could imagine. In that wonderful fat man's cockney voice, he said, slowly, drooping every word separately, as though he had all day: 'Tony, I just called to let you know that I want you for this picture, so you're quite safe to make yourself a nice deal.' What could I say? I mumbled my thanks and put the phone down, feeling rather dazed, electrified, stunned; all of these. The full impact of this call from Hitch was very soon to come home to me.
He had two other memorable roles on his return to England, including the evil Marques Siniestro in Hammer's The Curse of the Werewolf (1961), and henchman Professor Dent in the first James Bond film, Dr. No (1962).
Throughout his career he could often be found in the films of director Terence Young, including the aforementioned Dr. No, They Were Not Divided (1950),Valley of Eagles (1951), The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965), Triple Cross (1966), Red Sun (1971), Inchon (1981), and The Jigsaw Man (1983). Young also cast him as the physical presence of Ernst Stavro Blofeld in his Bond films From Russia with Love (1963), and Thunderball (1965), stroking the ubiquitous white cat. His face was never seen though, and Blofeld's voice was provided by Eric Pohlmann.
After the early 1960s his roles got progressively smaller, but he continued to act until the early 1990s. He died in January 1992, in Sussex, aged 75, after succumbing to cancer.
His appearances in Italian films from the late 1960s onwards often led to him being confused with Italian B-movie director Anthony M. Dawson, aka Antonio Margheriti.
External links
Anthony Dawson at the Internet Movie Database
Preceded by
Gert Fröbe
Official James Bond villain actor
1965
Succeeded by
Donald Pleasence
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Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Dawson"
Categories: 1916 births | 1992 deaths | People from Edinburgh | Scottish film actors | Cancer deaths
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