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Lionel Atwill

Lionel Atwill

Birthday: 1885-03-01 | Place of Birth: Croydon, London, England, UK

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Lionel Atwill (1 March 1885 – 22 April 1946) was an English stage and film actor born in Croydon, London, England. He studied architecture before his stage debut at the Garrick Theatre, London in 1904. He become a star in Broadway theatre by 1918, and made his screen debut in 1919. He acted on the stage in Australia but was most famous for his U.S. horror roles in the 1930s. His two most memorable parts were as the crazed, disfigured sculptor in Mystery of the Wax Museum (Warner Brothers, 1933), and as Inspector Krogh in Son of Frankenstein (1939), memorably sent up by Kenneth Mars in Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein (1974). When he was not cast in macabre roles, Atwill often appeared in the 1930s as righteous-minded authority figures. For example, in 1937's less memorable The Wrong Road for RKO, investigator Atwill persuades a young, bank-robbing ingenue played by Helen Mack and her boyfriend Richard Cromwell to return their ill-gotten $100,000 and give up a life of crime. Two of Atwill's other notable non-horror roles were opposite his contemporary Basil Rathbone in films featuring Arthur Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes, including a role as Dr. James Mortimer in 20th Century Fox's 1939 film rendition of the Conan Doyle novel The Hound of the Baskervilles, and the 1943 Universal Studios film Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon, in which he played Holmes' archenemy and super-villain, Professor Moriarty. Atwill remained a stalwart of the Universal horror films until his career flagged in the 1940s because of a widely publicized sex scandal in 1941, during the investigation of which he was charged in 1942 with perjury at a trial in which Atwill had been accused of staging a sex orgy at his home. He died while working on the 1946 film serial Lost City of the Jungle. His ashes were once inurned in Chapel of the Pines Crematory. Description above from the Wikipedia article Lionel Atwill, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia

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Known For

Acting

Year
Title

Role

1946
Genius at Work

as    Latimer Marsh / The Cobra

1946
Lost City of the Jungle

as    Sir Eric Hazarias

1945
Fog Island

as    Alec Ritchfield

1945
Crime, Inc.

as    Pat Coyle

1945
House of Dracula

as    Police Inspector Holtz

1944
Lady in the Death House

as    Charles Finch

1944
Captain America

as    Cyrus Maldor

1944
Raiders of Ghost City

as    Erich von Rugen, alias Alex Morel

1944
Secrets of Scotland Yard

as    Waterlow

1943
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man

as    Mayor of Vasaria

1942
The Strange Case of Doctor Rx

as    Dr. Fish

1942
Night Monster

as    Dr. King

1942
The Mad Doctor of Market Street

as    Dr. Ralph Benson, posing as Graham

1942
Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon

as    Professor Moriarty

1942
To Be or Not to Be

as    Rawitch

1942
Pardon My Sarong

as    Varnoff

1941
Man-Made Monster

as    Dr. Paul Rigas

1940
Charlie Chan in Panama

as    Cliveden Compton

1940
Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise

as    Dr. Suderman

1940
Boom Town

as    Harry Compton

1940
Johnny Apollo

as    Jim McLaughlin

1940
Girl in 313

as    Russell aka Henry Woodruff

1939
The Three Musketeers

as    De Rochefort

1939
The Hound of the Baskervilles

as    Dr. James Mortimer

1939
Son of Frankenstein

as    Inspector Krogh

1939
Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation

as    Prof. Roger Chauncey Hildebrand

1939
Balalaika

as    Professor Marakov

1939
The Gorilla

as    Walter Stevens

1938
Three Comrades

as    Breuer

1938
The Great Waltz

as    Count Anton 'Tony' Hohenfried