British actor Clive Brook, who came to Hollywood in the 1920s and became a major silent star for Paramount Pictures, said in 1933, “Hollywood is a chain gang and we lose the will to escape; the links of our chain are forged not of cruelties but luxuries; we are pelted with orchids and roses; we are overpaid and underworked.”

More actors from England have achieved stardom in Hollywood than from any other country. Their pioneering spirit brought them to the US from the dawn of the silents, and many settled in Hollywood in their own ‘colony,’ and socialized amongst themselves with afternoon teas and polo games. The Hollywood Cricket Club was established and most British expatriates were active members. A few of the prominent male stars of yesteryear are highlighted below.

Among the first Brits who came to Hollywood were Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel in 1910, part of a vaudeville comedy troupe, Fred Karno’s Army. Back in England, comedians were not stars and had their own comedy circuits in music halls where they eked out a living. Traveling to the US to seek their fortune was not a great risk as they were leaving poverty behind. This was especially true for Chaplin whose father was absent and whose mother was mentally ill; he was sent to a workhouse before he was nine. Chaplin was discovered by Mack Sennett, signed with the Keystone Company and made his first film in 1914. Subsequent fame and fortune kept him in Hollywood till 1951. Laurel teamed up with Oliver Hardy ten years after he made his first silent film in 1917. He remained in Hollywood for another forty years till his death in 1965.

 

When talkies took over Hollywood in the late 1920s, a lot of careers ended, and more were made overnight. Those silent stars who had heavy accents or nasal voices were replaced by those with stage training and perfect diction – mostly the British stage actors who came to Hollywood for the sunshine and the money.

Now forgotten but a huge star in his heyday, stage actor George Arliss was one of these. Coming to New York as part of a theater troupe from London, he found work on Broadway in 1902 and stayed on for two decades. His first film was The Devil in 1921. He came to fame in 1929 with his Oscar-winning turn as British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli in Disraeli, a remake of his silent film of the same name. He was the first British actor to win the award. He was 61 at the time.

Arliss went on to play the lead in several historical biopics such as Alexander Hamilton (1931), Voltaire (1933) the Duke of Wellington in The Iron Duke (1934), Nathan Rothschild in The House of Rothschild (1934), and Cardinal Richelieu (1935). He also successfully played in a number of comedies. Setting up a production unit first at Warner Bros. and then at Twentieth Century Fox, he had a hand in every aspect of his films, basically producing them though he only took acting credit. Bette Davis credited him for starting her career when he cast her as his leading lady in the film The Man Who Played God in 1932.

 

Ronald Colman already had a career on stage and in film in England when he came to the US in 1920. He had been wounded in the battle of Ypres in WWI and preferred to leave England after the war to seek his fortune in the US. He got work on the New York stage where he was discovered and given a role opposite Lillian Gish in The White Sister in 1923; he then signed a contract with Samuel Goldwyn and appeared in a few silent films, his athleticism and good looks a huge asset in silents like The Dark Angel (1925), Stella Dallas (1926) and Beau Geste (1926). But it was his beautiful speaking voice that brought him great success in talkies. He was nominated for an Oscar for two roles in 1930 – Condemned and Bulldog Drummond. Others he made included Raffles (1930, Clive of India and A tale of Two Cities in 1935, and The Prisoner of Zenda and Lost Horizon in 1937. He won the Oscar for Best Actor in 1948 for A Double Life. He died of a lung infection in 1956.

 

Cary Grant joined a comedy troupe at age 14 after running away from home in 1916. He went to the US two years later with the troupe to do a Broadway show called Good Times, and never looked back. He found his way to Hollywood in the early 1930s and with an assist from Mae West who claimed to have discovered him, appeared with her in She Done Him Wrong in 1933. His debonair mien and comic timing brought him great success in screwball comedies like The Awful Truth (1937) with Irene Dunne, Bringing Up Baby (1938) and The Philadelphia Story (1940) with Katharine Hepburn, and His Girl Friday with Rosalind Russell. The dramas Penny Serenade with Dunne and None But the Lonely Heart with Ethel Barrymore brought him Oscar nominations.

His collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock spanned four films – Suspicion (1941) with Joan Fontaine, Notorious (1946) with Ingrid Bergman, To Catch a Thief (1955) with Grace Kelly and North by Northwest (1959) with Eva Marie Saint. Other hits in his career included That Touch of Mink (1962) with Doris Day and Charade (1963) with Audrey Hepburn, both of which earned him Golden Globe nominations.

 

Ian Fleming was said to have based the character of James Bond on Grant. He was offered the role in Dr. No but turned it down, thinking he was too old. It went to Sean Connery. He retired from acting in 1966.

Stewart Granger was another stage-trained actor in England who became famous on the West End as a leading man. Enlisting in the army during WWII in 1940, he was discharged for health reasons and went back to his acting career, landing film roles like The Man in Grey which propelled him to fame in England and caught the eye of Hollywood. After marrying actress Jean Simmons in 1949, the pair moved to Hollywood where MGM signed him to a seven-year contract after the success of his first movie, King Solomon’s Mines in 1950.

Among his hit films were Scaramouche (1952), The Prisoner of Zenda (1952) and The Wild North (1953), his 6’2 height and pleasant speaking voice an asset. However, he was not popular with his costars. Eleanor Parker, who played opposite him in Scaramouche, had this to say: “Everyone disliked this man…Stewart Granger was a dreadful person, rude…just awful. Just being in his presence was bad. I thought at one point the crew was going to kill him.” However, Life magazine put him on the cover under the title “Stewart Granger: Swashbuckler.”

Granger had similar thoughts about the industry that made him a star. He is reported to have said, “I’ve never done a film I’m proud of” and “I don’t know which was the greatest disaster: my career or my wives.” However, he made more than 60 films with costars like Rita Hayworth (Salome, 1953), Elizabeth Taylor (Beau Brummell, 1954; The Last Hunt, 1956), Grace Kelly (Green Fire, 1954), Ava Gardner (Bhowani Junction, 1956; The Little Hut, 1957), and John Wayne (North to Alaska, 1960).

He moved to Europe after his marriage to Simmons ended though he made a few more movies in Hollywood that did not make money. His last studio film was The Last Safari shot in Africa in 1967 which he called “the worst film ever made in Africa.”

Another Brit who found fame in Hollywood was Rex Harrison who started his career onstage in Liverpool in 1924, moving to the West End in 1930 and making a name for himself in French Without Tears in 1936. He also started making films – his first starring role was in The Great Game also in 1930. His forte was light comedy roles and he performed both in London and New York after he served in the Royal Airforce during WWII. Harrison moved between stage and film roles effortlessly, winning acclaim for the films Blithe Spirit and The Rake’s Progress, both in 1945. He won two Tony awards, one for Anne of the Thousand Days and the second for My Fair Lady which was made into a film and earned him international stardom and an Oscar in 1964. He pioneered the use of speak-singing in the film which he also employed in 1967’s Doctor Doolittle.

His first Hollywood film was Anna and the King of Siam in 1946, followed by The Ghost of Mrs. Muir and The Foxes of Harrow in 1947. Other highlights in his film career include Unfaithfully Yours in 1948, The Long Dark Hall in 1951, King Richard and the Crusaders in 1954, Cleopatra in 1963 (Golden Globe and Oscar nominations), The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1963), The Agony and the Ecstasy in 1965, and Staircase in 1969.

Harrison was a difficult presence on sets and his rudeness and misbehavior have been recorded, especially on the set of Doctor Doolittle where he was fired and temporarily replaced by Christopher Plummer. His marital life was also messy. He married six times and was serially unfaithful. Carole Landis, an actress with whom he was having an affair committed suicide when he refused to marry her. Harrison waited several hours before calling the police after he discovered her body. His contract with Fox was ended because of the ensuing scandal.

Even after he retired from films, Harrison continued to act onstage. He was in The Circle on Broadway three weeks before his death in 1990.

David Niven, dapper star of stage and screen was born in London to a military family and attended the Sandhurst Military academy before serving with the Highland Light Infantry in Malta for two years before going to Hollywood in 1930. He worked as an extra in films before becoming known as a light comedian. The story goes that he went to Mexico to await his work permit to allow him to work in the US and worked as a cleaner of rifles for visiting hunters. Upon receipt of the permit, he was employed by Central Casting as “Anglo-Saxon Type No. 2008.

Moving on from extra work, he appeared in his first major roles in Dawn Patrol in 1938 and Wuthering Heights in 1939, then signed a contract with Samuel Goldwyn. Other films in this period were Dodsworth (1936), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) and The Prisoner of Zenda (1937). With Light Brigade, he made lifelong friends with Errol Flynn who became his sometime housemate between his marriages; the two would carouse together in Hollywood.

Niven was the only Brit who rejoined the British army during WWII in the Rifle Brigades and served through Dunkirk, then returned to Hollywood. His best-known roles include The Moon is Blue (1953), Around the World in 80 Days (1956), Separate Tables (1958, for which he won an Oscar while he was hosting the show), Bonjour Tristesse (1958), The Guns of Navarone (1961), The Pink Panther (1963), and Death on the Nile (1978).

 

While author Ian Fleming wanted him to play James Bond in Dr. No, he lost the part because he was thought to be too old. However, he did play Bond in the spoof Casino Royale in 1967.

A naturally gifted raconteur, Niven wrote two best-selling memoirs, “The Moon’s a Balloon” and “Bring on the Empty Horses.”

He died in 1983 of Lou Gehrig’s Disease and is buried in Switzerland.