George Zucco (11 January 1886 – 27 May 1960) was a British character actor who appeared in plays and 96 films, mostly American-made, during a career spanning over two decades, from the 1920s to 1951.[1] In his films, he often played a suave villain, a member of nobility, or a mad doctor.[2]
Early life and family
George Desylla Zucco was born in Manchester, Lancashire, on 11 January 1886.[1][3] His mother Marian (née Rintoul) ran a dressmaking business. His father, George De Sylla Zucco, was a Greek merchant from Corfu who became a naturalised British subject in 1865.[4][2][5]
Zucco debuted on the Canadian stage in 1908 in a stock theater company.[6]
He returned to the UK and served as a lieutenant in the British Army's West Yorkshire Regiment during the First World War.[7] He lost the use of two fingers when he was shot in the right arm in France. When the war ended, he studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and later taught there.[6]
After playing a bit part in David and Bathsheba (1951), Zucco undertook a role in The Desert Fox, but suffered a stroke one day on the set, and never significantly recovered (he was replaced by Cedric Hardwicke). He suffered from stroke-induced dementia for the rest of his life, and he died on 27 May 1960 from pneumonia in a nursing facility in Hollywood, aged 74.[1]
Personal life
He and his wife, Stella Francis, had a daughter, Frances (1931–1962), who died of throat cancer at age 30, and a grandson, George Zucco (né Canto). Stella Zucco died from natural causes on May 11, 1999, aged 99, in Woodland Hills, California.[9]
.jpg)
