Sir Cedric Webster Hardwicke, KBE (February 19, 1893 - August 6, 1964) was a notable English actor.
Hardwicke was born in the village of Lye, in Worcestershire, England, the son of Edwin Webster Hardwicke by his spouse Jessie (née Masterson). He attended Bridgnorth School in Shropshire and then trained at the RADA. He made his first appearance on stage at London's Lyceum Theatre in 1912 during the run of Frederick Melville's melodrama The Monk and the Woman, when he took up the part of Brother John. During that year he was at Her Majesty's Theatre understudying, and subsequently appeared at the Garrick Theatre in Charles Klein's play Find the Woman, and Trust the People. In 1913 he joined Benson's Company and toured in the provinces, South Africa, and Rhodesia. During 1914 he toured with Miss Darragh (Letitia Marion Dallas, d.1917) in Laurence Irving's play The Unwritten Law, and he appeared at the Old Vic in 1914 as Malcolm in Shakespeare's Macbeth, Tranio in The Taming of the Shrew, gravedigger in Hamlet, etc.
From 1914 to 1921 he served with the British Army in France. In January 1922 he joined the Birmingham Repertory Company. He played many classical roles on stage, appearing at London's top theatres, making his name on the stage performing works by George Bernard Shaw, who said that Hardwicke was his fifth favorite actor after the four Marx Brothers. As one of the leading Shavian actors of his generation, Hardwicke starred in such Shavian works as Caesar and Cleopatra, Pygmalion, The Apple Cart, Candida, Too True to Be Good, and Don Juan in Hell, making such an impression that he became one of the youngest actors to be knighted in 1934 at the age of 41. Other stage successes included The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse, Antigone and A Majority of One, winning a Tony Award nomination for his performance as a Japanese diplomat.
His first appearance in an English film was in 1931, and in 1939 Hardwicke went to Hollywood to begin a film career there but where he continued in stage performances including New York.
In 1944 he returned to England, again touring, and reappeared on the London stage, at the Westminster Theatre, on March 29, 1945, as Richard Varwell in a revival of Eden and Adelaide Phillpotts comedy Yellow Sands, and subsequently toured in this on the Continent. He returned to America late in 1945 an appeared with Ethel Barrymore in December in a revival of Shaw's Pygmalion, and continued on the New York the following year. in 1951-1952, he appeared on Broadway in Shaw's Don Juan in Hell with Agnes Moorehead, Charles Boyer, and Charles Laughton.
Despite having played in such film classics as Les Misérables (1935), King Solomon's Mines (1937), The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), The Winslow Boy (1948) and Olivier's Richard III (1955), Hardwicke is now remembered chiefly for his role as King Arthur in the comedy/musical, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949), singing Busy Doing Nothing in a trio with Bing Crosby and William Bendix and for his portrayal of the Pharaoh Seti I in Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 film The Ten Commandments. He also played Dr. David Livingstone opposite Spencer Tracy's Henry M. Stanley in the 1939 film classic, Stanley and Livingstone. And he was memorable as Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, with Charles Laughton as Quasimodo.
Hardwicke's son is the actor Edward Hardwicke, who became well-known for playing Dr. Watson on British television in the 1980s and 1990s.
In December 1935, Cedric Hardwicke was elected Rede Lecturer to Cambridge University for 1936, and was knighted in the 1934 New Year's Honours. He died at the age of 71 in New York City.
Hardwicke is remembered by a sculpture by Tim Tolkien at Lye, commissioned by Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council. The memorial takes the form of a giant filmstrip, the illuminated cut metal panels illustrating scenes from some of Sir Cedric's best-known roles, which include The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Things to Come, and The Ghost of Frankenstein. It was unveiled in November 2005. He also has a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.
