Francis Loftus Sullivan (January 6, 1903, Wandsworth, London - November 19, 1956 New York City, New York) was an English film and stage actor. He attended Stonyhurst, the Jesuit public school in Lancashire, England whose alumni include Charles Laughton and Arthur Conan Doyle.
Some of his notable film roles include Mr. Bumble in Oliver Twist (1948) and a supporting role in the film noir Night and the City (1950). Sullivan also played the part of Jaggers in two versions of Charles Dickens's Great Expectations - in 1934 and 1946. He appeared in a fourth Dickens film, the 1935 Universal Pictures version of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, in which he played Crisparkle. In 1938, he was featured in The Citadel, starring Robert Donat, and a decade later, he played the role of Pierre Cauchon in the technicolor version of Joan of Arc, starring Ingrid Bergman. Also in 1938 he starred in a revival of the Stokes' brothers play Oscar Wilde at London's Arts Theatre.
Sullivan also acted in light comedies, notably My Favorite Spy, starring Bob Hope and Hedy Lamarr, in which he played (of course) an enemy agent, and the 1944 comedy Fiddlers Three (no relation to the Agatha Christie play), in which he played Nero. He also played the role of Pothinus in the 1945 film version of George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra. The film was directed by Gabriel Pascal, and was the last film personally supervised by Shaw himself. Sullivan later reprised the role in a stage revival of the play.
Sullivan, who eventually became a naturalized US citizen, won a Tony Award in 1955 for the Agatha Christie play Witness for the Prosecution. Earlier, he had been a notable Hercule Poirot on the London stage in the 1930 play Black Coffee.
He died of a heart attack, aged 53 (most sources say he died of "a lung ailment").
Filmography
Great Expectations (1934)
The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1935)
The Drum (1938)
The Citadel (1938)
21 Days (1940)
Pimpernel Smith (1941)
The Day Will Dawn (1942)
The Foreman Went to France (1942)
Fiddlers Three (1944)
Caesar and Cleopatra (1945)
Great Expectations (1946)
Oliver Twist (1948)
The Winslow Boy (1948)
Joan of Arc (1948)
Christopher Columbus (1949)
Night and the City (1950)
My Favorite Spy (1951)
Plunder of the Sun (1953)
Hell's Island (1955)
The Prodigal (1955)
References
^ GRO Register of Births: MAR 1903 1d 727 WANDSWORTH - Francis Loftus Sullivan
External links
Francis L. Sullivan at Find A Grave
Francis L. Sullivan at the Internet Broadway Database
Francis L. Sullivan at the Internet Movie Database
v • d • e
Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play
Arthur Kennedy (1949) · Eli Wallach (1951) · John Cromwell (1952) · John Williams (1953) · John Kerr (1954) · Francis L. Sullivan (1955) · Ed Begley (1956) · Frank Conroy (1957) · Henry Jones (1958) · Charlie Ruggles (1959) · Roddy McDowall (1960) · Martin Gabel (1961) · Walter Matthau (1962) · Alan Arkin (1963) · Hume Cronyn (1964) · Jack Albertson (1965) · Patrick Magee (1966) · Ian Holm (1967) · James Patterson (1968) · Al Pacino (1969) · Ken Howard (1970) · Paul Sand (1971) · Vincent Gardenia (1972) · John Lithgow (1973) · Ed Flanders (1974) · Frank Langella (1975)
Complete list: (1947-1975) · (1976-2000) · (2001-present)
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Categories: 1903 births | 1956 deaths | English stage actors | English actors | English film actors | People from London | Naturalized citizens of the United States | Old Stonyhursts | Deaths by myocardial infarctionHidden categories: All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since May 2008
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