Ernest Thesiger, (January 15, 1879 - January 14, 1961), sometimes credited as Ernst Thesiger, was a British stage and film actor. He is best known for his performance as Dr. Septimus Pretorius in James Whale's Bride of Frankenstein in 1935. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (613x800, 46 KB) Charcoal of British Actor Ernest Thesiger by John Singer Sargent, from around 1911. ... 1911 (MCMXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar). ... Self Portrait, oil painting, 1907 John Singer Sargent (January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was the most successful portrait painter of his era, as well as a gifted landscape painter and watercolorist. ... January 15 is the 15th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1879 (MDCCCLXXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... London (pronounced ) is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom. ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: Multiple unofficial anthems Capital London Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Government Constitutional monarchy  - Queen Queen Elizabeth II  - Prime Minister Tony Blair MP Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq... January 14 is the 14th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1961 calendar). ... London (pronounced ) is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom. ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: Multiple unofficial anthems Capital London Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Government Constitutional monarchy  - Queen Queen Elizabeth II  - Prime Minister Tony Blair MP Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq... January 15 is the 15th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1879 (MDCCCLXXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... January 14 is the 14th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1961 calendar). ... Interior of the 1928 B. F. Keith Memorial Theatre, Boston, Massachusetts. ... Film is a term that encompasses motion pictures as individual projects, as well as the field in general. ... Septimus Pretorius is a fictional character who appears in the Universal film Bride of Frankenstein. ... This is a page about the film director James Whale. ... Bride of Frankenstein is a horror film released on April 22, 1935, a sequel to the 1931 film Frankenstein. ... 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ...

The grandson of the Baron Chelmsford, Thesiger was born Ernest Frederic Graham Thesiger in London. Viscount Chelmsford is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. ... London (pronounced ) is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom. ...

Early career

Thesiger attended Marlborough College with aspirations of becoming a painter, but quickly switched to drama, making his professional debut in a production of Colonel Smith in 1909. He enlisted in the military at the outbreak of the First World War, but was wounded on the field and sent home. Marlborough College is a British boarding school in the county of Wiltshire, founded in 1843 for the education of the sons of Church of England clergy, although it now accepts both boys and girls of all beliefs. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... 1909 (MCMIX) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ...

Thesiger's film debut was in 1916 in The Real Thing at Last, a spoof presenting Macbeth as it might be done by an American company, in which he did a drag turn as one of the Witches. He did a few more small movies during the silent era, but worked mainly on the stage. 1916 (MCMXVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... Scene from Macbeth, depicting the witches conjuring of an apparition in Act IV, Scene I. Painting by William Rimmer This article is on Shakespeares play, for other meanings see Macbeth (disambiguation). ... Drag in its broadest sense means a costume or outfit that carries symbolic significance, but usually refers to the clothing associated with one gender role when worn by a person of the other gender. ... This article is part of the Witchcraft series. ... A silent film is a film which has no accompanying soundtrack. ...

In 1919 he appeared in a Christmas production of The Merry Wives of Windsor, during which he met and befriended James Whale. In 1925, Thesiger appeared in Noel Coward's On With the Dance, again in drag, and later played the Dauphin in Shaw's Saint Joan. He wrote an autobiography entitled Practically True, published in 1927, which covers his stage career. 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Christmas or Christmas Day is a holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus, the central figure of Christianity. ... The Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy by William Shakespeare featuring the fat knight Falstaff. ... 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... Sir Noel Peirce Coward (spelling his forename Noël with the diaeresis was an affectation of later life) (16 December 1899 – 26 March 1973) was an English actor, playwright, and composer of popular music. ... The Dauphin was the heir apparent to the throne of France under the Valois and Bourbon dynasties. ... George Bernard Shaw (George) Bernard Shaw[1] (July 26, 1856 – November 2, 1950) was an Irish playwright and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925 and an Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay in 1938 for Pygmalion. ... Saint Joan is a 1923 play by G. Bernard Shaw that he wrote shortly after the Roman Catholic Church canonized Joan of Arc. ...

Working with James Whale

After Whale had moved to Hollywood and found success with Journey's End and Frankenstein, he was commissioned to direct the screen adaptation of J. B. Priestley's The Benighted, entitled The Old Dark House, starring Charles Laughton in his first American film together with Boris Karloff and Raymond Massey. Whale immediately cast Thesiger in the film as Horace Femme, launching his Hollywood career. ... Journeys End is the seventh and most famous play by R. C. Sherriff. ... Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel by Mary Shelley. ... Priestley at the microphone during one of his Second World War broadcasts John Matthew Smith Priestley, OM (September 13, 1894, Bradford, England - August 14, 1984, Stratford-upon-Avon) was an English writer and broadcaster. ... The Old Dark House (1932) Seeking shelter from a pounding rainstorm in a remote region of Wales, several travellers are admitted to a gloomy, foreboding mansion belonging to the extremely strange Femm family. ... Charles Laughton (1 July 1899 – 15 December 1962) was an English stage and film actor. ... Boris Karloff (November 23, 1887 in East Dulwich, London, England – February 2, 1969) was an English actor best known for his roles in horror films. ... Raymond Massey photographed by Carl Van Vechten Raymond Hart Massey (August 30, 1896 – July 29, 1983) was a Canadian actor. ...

The following year Thesiger appeared with Karloff in The Ghoul, a film about a man who seeks to achieve immortality with a sacred Egyptian jewel. The film was later lost but rediscovered in 1969. It was remade as the comedy What a Carve Up in 1961 and probably provided some of the basis for the Vincent Price movie Dr. Phibes Rises Again in 1974, as well as The Mummy Returns in 2001. The Ghoul is a 1933 British Horror film starring Boris Karloff, Cedric Hardwicke and Ernest Thesiger. ... Immortality (or eternal life) is the concept of existing for a potentially infinite, or indeterminate, length of time. ... 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1961 calendar). ... Vincent Price on Broadway as Mr. ... Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972) was the second Dr. Phibes movie, a sequel to The Abominable Dr. Phibes. ... 1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... The Mummy Returns is a 2001 movie starring Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, and is directed by Stephen Sommers. ... 2001: A Space Odyssey. ...

When Whale agreed to direct Bride of Frankenstein in 1935, he insisted on casting Thesiger as Dr. Pretorius, instead of the studio's choice of Claude Rains. Partly inspired by Mary Shelley's friend John Polidori and largely based on Renaissance alchemist Paracelsus, it became Thesiger's most famous role. Thanks to Thesiger's fey, flamboyant performance, Dr. Pretorius became one of the most memorable characters in classic cinematic horror. 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Claude Rains in Casablanca (1942) Claude Rains (November 10, 1889 - May 30, 1967) was an English actor. ... Mary Shelley (30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist, the author of Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. ... John William Polidori (September 7, 1795 – August 24, 1821) is credited by some as the creator of the vampire genre of fantasy fiction. ... Raphael was famous for depicting illustrious figures of the Classical past with the features of his Renaissance contemporaries. ... For other uses, see Alchemy (disambiguation). ... Paracelsus Paracelsus (born 11 November or 17 December 1493 in Einsiedeln, Switzerland - 24 September 1541) was an alchemist, physician, astrologer, and general occultist. ...

After Frankenstein

Originally cast to play the luddite Theotocopolous in Things to Come (1936), Thesiger was replaced by the "more marketable" Cedric Hardwicke, but went on to appear that same year in another film adaptation of an H.G. Wells work, The Man Who Could Work Miracles. Around this same time Thesiger published a book, Adventures in Embroidery, about one of his favorite hobbies, needlework. The Luddites were a social movement of English textile workers in the early 1800s who protested — often by destroying textile machines — against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt threatened their jobs. ... Things to Come is a 1936 British science fiction film, produced by Alexander Korda and directed by William Cameron Menzies. ... 1936 (MCMXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Sir Cedric Webster Hardwicke (February 19, 1893 - August 6, 1964) was a British actor. ... H. G. Wells at the door of his house at Sandgate Herbert George Wells (September 21, 1866 - August 13, 1946) was an English writer best known for his science fiction novels such as The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine. ... The Man Who Could Work Miracles is a 1936 British fantasy-comedy film. ... Needlework is another term for the handicraft of decorative sewing and textile arts. ...

The remainder of Thesiger's career was centered around the theater and supporting roles in films produced in Britain. His last film appearance was a small role in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, with Vivien Leigh and Warren Beatty, in 1961. That same year he made his last stage appearance in The Last Joke, with John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson. He died shortly after from natural causes. For other usages see Theatre (disambiguation) Theater (American English) or Theatre (British English and widespread usage among theatre professionals in the US) is that branch of the performing arts concerned with acting out stories in front of an audience using combinations of speech, gesture, music, dance, sound and spectacle &#8212... The Roman Spring of Mrs. ... Vivien Leigh, Lady Olivier (November 5, 1913 – July 8, 1967) was a British actress. ... Henry Warren Beaty (born March 30, 1937), now known as Warren Beatty, is an American actor, producer, screenwriter, and director. ... 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1961 calendar). ... John Gielgud as photographed in 1936 by Carl Van Vechten Sir Arthur John Gielgud OM, CH (14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000), known as Sir John Gielgud, was an English theatre and film actor, regarded by many as one of the greatest British actors in history. ... Sir Ralph David Richardson (19 December 1902 – 10 October 1983) was an English actor, one of a group of theatrical knights of the mid-20th century who, though more closely associated with the stage, did their best to make the transition to film. ...

Filmography

• The Real Thing at Last (1916)
• Nelson (1918)
• The Life Story of David Lloyd George (1918)
• A Little Bit of Fluff (1919)
• The Bachelor's Club (1921)
• The Adventures of Mr. Pickwick (1921)
• Number 13 (1922)
• Week-End Wives (1929)
• The Vagabond Queen (1930)
• The Old Dark House (1932)
• The Only Girl (1933)
• The Ghoul (1933)
• Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
• The Murder Party (1935)
• The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1936)
• They Drive by Night (1938)
• My Learned Friend (1943)
• The Lamp Still Burns (1943)
• A Place of One's Own (1944)
• Henry V (1944)
• Caesar and Cleopatra (1945)
• The Ghosts of Berkeley Square (1947)
• The Winslow Boy (1948)
• Brass Monkey (1948)
• The Bad Lord Byron (1949)
• Quartet (1949)
• The Man in the White Suit (1951)
• Scrooge (1951)
• The Magic Box (1951)
• The Robe (1953)
• The Million Pound Note (1953)
• Father Brown (1954)
• Quentin Durward (1955)
• Value for Money (1955)
• An Alligator Named Daisy (1955)
• Who Done It? (1956)
• Three Men in a Boat (1956)
• Doctor at Large (1957)
• The Truth About Women (1958)
• The Horse's Mouth (1958)
• The Battle of the Sexes (1959)
• Sons and Lovers (1960)
• Lord Arthur Savile's Crime (1960)
• The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961)

1916 (MCMXVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1918 (MCMXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. ... A Little Bit of Fluff a. ... 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... 1921 (MCMXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... Number 13 can refer to four different things: The number thirteen. ... 1922 (MCMXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... 1929 (MCMXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1930 (MCMXXX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link is to a full 1930 calendar). ... The Old Dark House (1932) Seeking shelter from a pounding rainstorm in a remote region of Wales, several travellers are admitted to a gloomy, foreboding mansion belonging to the extremely strange Femm family. ... 1932 (MCMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link will take you to a full 1932 calendar). ... 1933 (MCMXXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Ghoul is a 1933 British Horror film starring Boris Karloff, Cedric Hardwicke and Ernest Thesiger. ... 1933 (MCMXXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Bride of Frankenstein is a horror film released on April 22, 1935, a sequel to the 1931 film Frankenstein. ... 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Man Who Could Work Miracles is a 1936 British fantasy-comedy film. ... 1936 (MCMXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... A British film comedy by Will Hay, who stars and co-directs. ... 1943 (MCMXLIII) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1943 calendar). ... 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1944 calendar). ... Henry V is a 1944 film adaptation of the William Shakespeare play Henry V; it was released in Los Angeles in 1946. ... Caesar and Cleopatra is a 1901 play by George Bernard Shaw. ... 1945 (MCMVL) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1945 calendar). ... 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1947 calendar). ... The Winslow Boy is an English 1946 play by Terence Rattigan based on an actual incident in the Edwardian era, which took place at the Royal Naval College, Osborne House. ... 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1948 calendar). ... Brass Monkey is a British film made in 1948, starring Carroll Levis, formerly a radio variety show host, and American actress Carole Landis. ... 1949 (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1949 calendar). ... Quartet is the title of a 1948 film based on stories by W. Somerset Maugham. ... The Man in the White Suit was a satirical comedy movie made in 1951 by Ealing Studios. ... 1951 (MCMLI) was a common year starting on Monday; see its calendar. ... Scrooge (1951) is one of the best-known and most acclaimed film adaptations of Charles Dickenss A Christmas Carol. ... In the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Magic Box is a magic shop in Sunnydale run by Rupert Giles. ... The Robe, a 1942 historical novel featuring the Crucifixion, written by Lloyd C. Douglas. ... 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1953 calendar). ... The Million Pound Note is a 1953 film starring Gregory Peck External Links IMDB Profile Category: ... 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Quentin Durward is a historical novel written by Walter Scott in 1823. ... 1955 (MCMLV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Plot Spoiler warning: When the toliet over flows Greg is out to prove that Jimmy was the one who did it. ... 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), published 1889, is a humorous account by Jerome K. Jerome of a boating holiday on the Thames between Kingston and Oxford. ... 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1958 (MCMLVIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Horses Mouth is a 1944 novel by Joyce Cary, the third in a trilogy. ... The Battle of the Sexes was a nationally televised tennis match between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King, held at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas, on September 20, 1973. ... 1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Sons and Lovers is the third published novel of D.H. Lawrence, taken by many to be his earliest masterpiece. ... 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1960 calendar). ... The Roman Spring of Mrs. ... 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1961 calendar). ...

External links

• Ernest Thesiger at the Internet Movie Database
• The Importance of Being Ernest
• The Ernest Thesiger Collection, part of the University of Bristol Theatre Collection
• Internet Movie Database - Ernest Thesiger
• Classic Horror Movie Players T
• Grave of Ernest Thesiger
• The Doctor Is In!

This article originally appeared on the Outcyclopedia website