Reginald Denny

British screen star and British aviator Reginald Denny, who often played a dapper and debonair Englishman, and Canadian Québéçoise screen star Fifi d’Orsay, in Harry Beaumont’s Pre-Code comedy movie for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer ‘Those Three French Girls’ (1930), also starring Cliff Edwards, Yola D’Avril, Sandra Ravel, George Grossmith, Jr., Edward Brophy, and Peter Gawthorne. Reginald Denny began his career on the London stage and in plays that travelled around Great Britain. He then went on to appear in The States in 58 silent movies between 1915 and 1929, often as the leading man, and then when movies added sound, he then went on to star as both a leading man, and as a character actor in 28 Pre-Code movies between 1929 and 1934, and then he went on to appear in another 68 movies up until 1966. His best known Pre-Code movie is probably Sidney Franklin’s Pre-Code comedy movie adaptation of Noël Coward’s ‘Private Lives’ (1931), also starring Canadian actress Norma Shearer, Robert Montgomery, Una Merkel, and Danish actor Jean Hersholt. He appeared in John Cromwell’s adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s ‘Of Human Bondage’ (1934), also starring Bette Davis, Leslie Howard, and Frances Dee, in Richard Wallace’s ‘The Little Minister’ (1934), also starring Katharine Hepburn, Donald Crisp, and Beryl Mercer, and in Clarence Brown’s adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s 1877 novel ‘Anna Karenina’ (1935), also starring Greta Garbo, Fredric March, Freddie Bartholomew, Maureen O’ Sullivan, May Robson, Basil Rathbone, Reginald Owen, and Ethel Griffies. He is probably best remembered in the role of “Algy Longworth” in seven “Bulldog Drummond” movies between 1937 and 1938. He appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’ (1940), also starring Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, Judith Anderson, George Sanders, Gladys Cooper, and C. Aubrey Smith. One of his last movies was Elliot Silverstein’s Western comedy ‘Cat Ballou’ (1965), also starring Lee Marvin, Jane Fonda, Michael Callan, Dwayne Hickman, Nat King Cole, and Stubby Kaye. His final acting role was as “Commodore Schmiddlapp”on the television show ‘Batman’ (1966). Remembering Reginald Denny (20th November, 1891 - 16th June, 1967).