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Michael Rennie (born Eric Alexander Rennie; 25 August 1909 – 10 June 1971) was a British film, television and stage actor, who had leading roles in a number of Hollywood films, including his portrayal of the space visitor Klaatu in the science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). In a career spanning more than 30 years, Rennie appeared in more than 50 films and in several American television series.
He went to work at the family mill in Bradford, but did not enjoy it. He worked in a number of occupations, including a stint as a car salesman, and sweeping floors in his uncle's steel ropes factory. He eventually decided (at the time of his 26th birthday, in 1935) on a career as an actor. He retained his surname but adopted Michael as his professional name. He cited Ronald Colman as his role model.
Rennie's first screen acting was an uncredited bit part in the Alfred Hitchcock film Secret Agent (1936), standing in for Robert Young. Balcon says he saw Rennie act in a scene in East Meets West (1936) and fired him immediately afterwards. Balcon wrote "I had seen the rushes of that day's filming and had at once decided that Rennie was far too inexperienced to justify big screen parts."
The 1937 screen test, which exists in the British Film Institute (BFI) archives under the title "Marguerite Allan and Michael Rennie Screen Test", did not lead to a film career for either performer.
Balcon says Rennie "took his setback well, left the studios, and went off to learn his job in repertory." Rennie worked mostly in Yorkshire, eventually becoming a star with the York Repertory Company. One of his roles was Professor Henry Higgins in Pygmalion.
He also played other bit parts and minor unbilled roles in other films, including The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1936), Conquest of the Air (1937), The Squeaker (1937), Gangway (1937), The Divorce of Lady X (1938), Bank Holiday (1938), This Man in Paris (1939) and The Briggs Family (1940). He later said he strove to perfect a "mid-Atlantic accent" that could easily be understood by American as well as British audiences which resulted in people thinking he was Canadian.
While that film was being prepared, Rennie continued repertory work and accepted a one-line role in George Formby's Turned Out Nice Again. Balcon says Rennie "declared that he enjoyed it as he was playing a motor salesman, and this reminded him of the days when he tried to sell cars – without securing a single buyer."
Rennie had his first big film role in the suspense drama Tower of Terror (1941). This starred Wilfrid Lawson in the lead role as a crazed Dutch lighthouse keeper in the German-occupied Netherlands, while the second-billed Rennie and third-billed Movita had the romantic leads. In a 1951 interview Rennie said this was his worst part.
Michael Balcon also used him in The Big Blockade (1942). He was called a "rapidly rising newcomer". Another profile referred to him as an "athletic, Clark Gable-ish young man."
He was officially discharged on 4 August 1942, and then on the following day, he was commissioned "for the emergency" as pilot officer number 127347 on probation in the General Duties Branch of the RAFVR. On 5 February 1943, he was promoted to flying officer on probation. He resigned his commission on 1 May 1944 (not discharged on disability, as the studio publicity stated).
Rennie had carried out his basic training near Torquay in Devon, after which he was sent to the United States for fighter plane training under the Hap Arnold. In this programme, pilots of the RAF were trained by United States Army Air Forces instructors. One of his fellow students was RAF Sergeant Jack Morton, who told an anecdote about when he and Rennie were in the same class:
At the end of our primary course we were posted to a Basic Flying School at Cochran Field, Macon, Georgia. The class which completed the course at Cochran Field was now split up, half were posted to Napier Field, Dothan, Alabama, to train on single-engine planes, and the remainder were posted to twin-engine schools. Like Cochran, Napier Field was a large permanent Air Corps Base and most of us were quite content to stay on the camp when we had time off. One of the cadets on our course had told us that he was a film actor, but no one took him seriously. We had to admit that he was right however when a film came to the camp cinema called Ships with Wings starring Michael Rennie.
... likely Hollywood material... the best bet in the way of a new male star to have come out of a British studio in many years. Rennie not only has a lot on the ball as a straight lead, he knows the value of visual tricks. Femmes will go for him in a big way.
He followed this with another movie with Lockwood at Gainsborough, the costume adventure The Wicked Lady (1945). Rennie was billed fifth, beneath Lockwood, James Mason, Patricia Roc and Griffith Jones, but he played the one true love of Lockwood's character. It was the year's biggest box-office hit, subsequently ninth out of the ten highest-grossing British films of all time.
Rennie's prestige was also raised when he was given a single prominent scene as a commander of Roman Empire centurions in Gabriel Pascal's production of George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra (also 1945), starring Vivien Leigh and Claude Rains. The film's expense caused it to lose a large amount of money, despite its being highly successful at the box office, particularly in the U.S.
Rennie was now established as a leading actor. One report called him "the bobbysoxers' dark idol... Gainsborough's 1945 discovery." He was mobbed by female fans on a personal appearance tour.
Gainsborough teamed him with one of their biggest female stars, Phyllis Calvert, in the melodrama The Root of All Evil (1947).
Rennie made films for independent producers, and his career momentum began to fade: Uneasy Terms (1948); Golden Madonna (1949) (again with Calvert); and two comedies for Val Guest: Miss Pilgrim's Progress (1949) and The Body Said No! (1950). He did play one of two central characters in the 47-minute episode "Sanatorium", the longest of the Somerset Maugham tales constituting the omnibus film Trio (1950); the 40-year-old Rennie and the 20-year-old Jean Simmons play patients and doomed lovers in the title institution.
Rennie's performance impressed Fox's studio head, Darryl F. Zanuck, who offered him a role in a film shot in Canada, The 13th Letter (1951). Directed by Otto Preminger, it was a remake of the French film Le Corbeau ( The Raven, 1943), with the setting changed to the Canadian province of Quebec.
Fox was so pleased with Rennie's work that it offered him a seven-year contract in November 1950.
Rennie went on to support Power in I'll Never Forget You (1951) then had good roles in the ensemble drama Phone Call from a Stranger (1952) (where he played an American) and in the wartime spy thriller, 5 Fingers (1952), as the agent who tracks down James Mason's spy. He did some narration for (1951) and provided voiceovers for several Fox films, such as Pony Soldier (1952), Titanic (1953), The Desert Rats (1953) and Prince Valiant (1954).
He was, however, launched on a thriving career as a top supporting actor at Fox, often playing figures of authority, such as doctors or military officers.
Rennie supported Tyrone Power once more in King of the Khyber Rifles (1954), as a brigadier in British India, then he played his first villain for Fox, an evil "Rama Khan" in the "eastern" Princess of the Nile (1954), opposite Jeffrey Hunter. He reprised his role as Peter in Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954) and was lent out for Mambo (1954).
In Désirée (1954), Rennie played the future Charles XIV John of Sweden opposite Marlon Brando as Napoleon Bonaparte. The film was popular although not as highly regarded as other Brando films from this time. Soldier of Fortune (1955), was another hit, with Rennie as a British police inspector in Hong Kong supporting Clark Gable and Susan Hayward.
On TV he played the attorney in an adaptation of The Letter (1955) with John Mills. He also received good reviews for his performance as an art dealer in the episode "A Man of Taste" (1955) for Climax! with Zsa Zsa Gabor. Rennie enjoyed live TV. "You have greater performances as opposed to those in a filmed series", he said. "You are able to build and sustain a role in live TV whereas you have the problem of cutting, stopping and starting in a filmed show."
Based on the positive reaction to his two turns as the Apostle Peter, Fox assigned him another third-billed, top-tier role as a stalwart man of God, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra, who, between 1749 and his death in 1784, founded missions in Alta California. The film was Seven Cities of Gold (1955), with Richard Egan and Anthony Quinn.
His next film was The Rains of Ranchipur (1955), assigned him fifth billing after the lead romantic teaming of Lana Turner and Richard Burton. As Turner's character's husband, Lord Esketh, Rennie maintained his typical dignity and stiff upper lip. He supported Ginger Rogers in Teenage Rebel (1956) and had a good role as the man murdered by James Mason in Island in the Sun (1957), Darryl Zanuck's popular melodrama. His contract with Fox then wound up.
Scheduling conflicts meant he missed out on a role in The Vikings (1958), being replaced by James Donald.
He had top billing in a mountaineering film for Disney, Third Man on the Mountain (1959), although he was really the support for James MacArthur.
Irwin Allen gave him a leading part at Fox, casting him as adventurer Lord John Roxton in an adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World (1960), a tale of a jungle expedition that finds prehistoric monsters in South America; the film also starred Claude Rains, Jill St. John and Richard Haydn. Then, no longer bound by the no-television clause in his studio contract, he began his association with the medium.
At the start of the 1960s, Michael Rennie made his only Broadway theatre appearance in Mary, Mary playing Dirk Winsten, a jaded film star. After two previews, the sophisticated five-character marital comedy written by Jean Kerr and directed by Joseph Anthony opened at the Helen Hayes Theatre on 8 March 1961. It ran for a very successful 1,572 performances, closing at the Morosco Theatre on 12 December 1964. Rennie stayed with the production less than five months and was replaced by Michael Wilding in July 1961.
When Warner Bros. cast the film version in early 1963, Rennie, along with leading man Barry Nelson and supporting actor Hiram Sherman (who joined the play two years after the opening in the part first played by John Cromwell), were the only Broadway cast members to carry over. Debbie Reynolds was given the title role created by Barbara Bel Geddes, and Warner's contract player Diane McBain, whom the studio saw as a potential star of the future, took over "the socialite part" essayed by Betsy von Furstenberg. Mervyn LeRoy produced and directed the film, which opened at Radio City Music Hall on 25 October 1963.
Rennie was cast in a lead role in the comedy play Any Wednesday but left the project during out of town try outs. He was replaced by Don Porter and the play was a huge success.
He completed what amounted to guest roles in two films, The Power and The Devil's Brigade as Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark (both 1968), before moving to Switzerland in the latter part of that year. His final seven feature films were filmed in Britain ( Subterfuge (1968)), Italy ( Death on the Run (1968) and The Young, the Evil and the Savage (1968)) and Spain ( Giugno '44 – Sbarcheremo in Normandia AKA Seven into Hell (1968), The Battle of El Alamein (1969) as General Bernard Law Montgomery and Los Monstruos del Terror, also known as Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1970), then the Philippines ( Surabaya Conspiracy AKA Stoney (1969)).
He had a son, John Marshall, with his longtime friend and mistress, Renée (née Gilbert), whose later married name was Taylor. Renée was the sister of the British film director Lewis Gilbert. During the war years, they lived coincidentally in flats in the White House in Albany Street near Regent's Park in London, (now a hotel). The White House was a favourite location to live during the war years. It was built in the shape of a white cross and was such a good navigation mark for the Luftwaffe that it was rumoured that there were standing orders to avoid bombing it, hence its popularity with celebrities and the wealthy.
Although Rennie offered to accept paternity on discovering the news of her pregnancy, Renée refused, as she was unwilling to jeopardise his growing success as a romantic lead in major feature films. However, Rennie kept a watchful eye on John Marshall over the years, even after his marriage to Maggie McGrath, and both families remained in constant touch until Rennie's death. In fact Renée and Maggie lived for many years in the 1970s and 1980s within 200 yards of each other in Barnes and were close friends. Both Michael Rennie and his sister Bunny were very fond of Renée's family. Coincidentally the British Film Institute's database lists Rennie as also having a son, John M. Taylor, who is described as "a producer." John Marshall Rennie used the pseudonym "Taylor" during his long career in the industry to avoid accusations of nepotism.
Michael Rennie was also briefly engaged to Mary Gardner, the former wife of Hollywood director Otto Preminger. In 1959, Preminger was divorcing Mary and claimed Rennie was having an affair with her.
In 1958, Rennie said he earned $117,000 a year which provided him with $36,000 net.
His death has been variously attributed to heart attack, emphysema, an aortic aneurysm and to natural causes of death.
Michael Rennie was ill the day the Earth stood still
Death
Within three years of leaving Hollywood, he journeyed to his mother's home in Harrogate, Yorkshire, following the death of his brother. It was there that he died on 10 June 1971. He was buried in Harlow Hill Cemetery in Harrogate.
Complete filmography
Partial list of TV appearances
In popular culture
The Rocky Horror Show's opening song Science Fiction/Double Feature starts with the line:
External links
Categories: 1909 Births, 1971 Deaths, 20th-century English Male Actors, 20th Century Studios Contract Players, British Expatriate Male Actors In The United States, British World War Ii Fighter Pilots, English Male Film Actors, English Male Stage Actors, English Male Television Actors, English People Of Scottish Descent, Male Actors From Bradford, People Educated At The Leys School, People From Idle, West Yorkshire, Royal Air Force Officers, Royal Air Force Pilots Of World War Ii, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve Personnel Of World War Ii, Western Television Actors
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