Reginald Owen
Known For: Acting
Gender: Male
Date of Birth: August 4, 1887
Day of Death: November 5, 1972 (85 years old)
Place of Birth: Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire, England, UK
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia John Reginald Owen (5 August 1887 – 5 November 1972) was an English character actor. He was known for his many roles in British and American films and later in television programmes. The son of Joseph and Frances Owen, Reginald Owen studied at Sir Herbert Tree's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and made his professional debut in 1905. In 1911, he starred in the original production of Where the Rainbow Ends as Saint George which opened to very good reviews on 21 December 1911. Reginald Owen had a few years earlier met the author Mrs. Clifford Mills as a young actor, and it was he who on hearing her idea of a Rainbow Story persuaded her to turn it into a play, and thus "Where the Rainbow Ends" was born. He went to the United States in 1920 and worked originally on Broadway in New York, but later moved to Hollywood, where he began a lengthy film career. He was always a familiar face in many Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer productions. Owen is perhaps best known today for his performance as Ebenezer Scrooge in the 1938 film version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, a role he inherited from Lionel Barrymore, who had played the part of Scrooge on the radio every Christmas for years until Barrymore broke his hip in an accident. Owen was one of only five actors to play both Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr Watson (Jeremy Brett played Watson on stage in the United States prior to adopting the mantle of Holmes on British television, Carleton Hobbs played both roles in British radio adaptations while Patrick Macnee played both roles in US television films). Howard Marion-Crawford played Holmes in a radio adaptation of "The Speckled Band" and later played Watson to Ronald Howard’s Holmes in the 1954-55 television series. Owen first played Watson in the film Sherlock Holmes (1932), and then Holmes himself in A Study in Scarlet (1933). Having played Ebenezer Scrooge, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, Owen has the odd distinction of playing three classic characters of Victorian fiction only to live to see those characters be taken over and personified by other actors, namely Alastair Sim as Scrooge, Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Watson. Later in his career, Owen appeared opposite James Garner in the television series Maverick in the episodes "The Belcastle Brand" (1957) and "Gun-Shy" (1958) and also guest starred in episodes of the series One Step Beyond and Bewitched. He was featured in the Walt Disney films Mary Poppins (1964) and Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). He had a small role in the 1962 Irwin Allen production of the Jules Verne novel Five Weeks in a Balloon. In August 1964, his Bel-Air mansion was rented out to the Beatles, who were performing at the Hollywood Bowl, when no hotel would book them.
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Actor Clayton
Woman of the Year
Actor "Biffer"
Random Harvest
Actor Foley
Mrs. Miniver
Actor Schultz
Reunion in France
Actor Philo Cobson
Cairo
Actor Willie Manning
Somewhere I'll Find You
Actor Skipper of the Congo Queen
White Cargo
Actor Maj. Tyler-Blane
We Were Dancing
Actor 'Whiskers'
I Married an Angel
Actor Noah Glenkins
Pierre of the Plains
1941
1940
1939
1938
Actor Ebenezer Scrooge
A Christmas Carol
Actor Hillary Bellaire
Everybody Sing
Actor William, the Butler
Three Loves Has Nancy
Actor Capt. Hoseason
Kidnapped
Actor Charlie Grump
The Girl Downstairs
Actor Johann Kesselhut
Paradise for Three
Actor John Hodge Lawson
Vacation from Love
Actor Scrooge (atchive footage)
A Fireside Chat with Lionel Barrymore
Story
Stablemates
1937
1936
Actor Sampston
The Great Ziegfeld
Actor Baron Otto Spandermann
Love on the Run
Actor Myerson
Rose Marie
Actor Sir James Felton
Petticoat Fever
Actor President of Club
Trouble for Two
Actor Dictionary McKinney
Yours for the Asking
Actor Blackton Gregory
Adventure in Manhattan
Actor Archie Biddle
The Girl on the Front Page
1935
1934
Actor Thorpe Athelny
Of Human Bondage
Actor Oscar Baroque
Fashions of 1934
Actor Ernst Weber
Music in the Air
Actor Bordenave
Nana
Actor Vova
Here Is My Heart
Actor The Governor-General
Stingaree
Actor Herries
The House of Rothschild
Actor King Louis XV
Madame du Barry
Actor Police Commissioner Col. Thomas Dawson
Mandalay
Actor Leonard
Where Sinners Meet
Actor The Baron
The Countess of Monte Cristo
Actor James Dalton
The Human Side
