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Robert Douglas
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 Robert Douglas Finlayson, known as
Robe, known as
Robert Douglas, was born on 9th November 1909 in Bletchley,
Buckinghamshire, England to Robert Barnett Finlayson, born 22nd
September 1888 in Kimberley, Diamandveld, Northern Cape, South Africa,
and Emiline Marcia Bird. His brother was
Wallace Douglas, a Canadian
producer, director and actor. They has a sister, Cynthia Emily Finlayson
.
Robert Douglas' real last
name, Finlayson, is a Scots name - and perhaps it was that side of him
that meant to do what he wanted to do. The males of the family had
followed the military for several generations - his father and
grandfather were commanders of the West Sussex regiment - but he decided
on another road for his career. He was interested in acting and showed
enough talent and potential to debut on stage at 16 and enter theater
training for two years at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London
the next year. Using his given middle name as a professional surname, in
1930 he moved up to a feature role with an all-star cast in the London
revival of "A Bill of Divorcement". Other choice roles followed quickly:
"Kind Lady" with Sybil Thorndike and the "Last Enemy" with Laurence
Olivier. Even then Douglas was destined for a trans-Atlantic career. At
the end of that same year of 1930 he came to Broadway to do the American
version of "Last Enemy" with Jessica Tandy. Still he was back in London
in 1931 to open yet another page in his acting career with the potential
to be found in film work. With a rather rugged, squared-off good looks
and purposeful acting voice, he found further work in the movies -
comedies at first. But he had less than a dozen roles through 1939, for
he was pursuing yet another interest - and that on the other side of the
stage with producing and directing plays in the West End beginning in
1932 at age 23.
The few film roles nevertheless kept ramping up
in significance. By 1937 his first lead dramatic role in Torpedoed
(1937) tapped him for a real adventure. Bergfilms or mountain films,
being a heroic if emotional epitomizing of Teutonic spirit against stark
but beautiful nature, had been popular in Germany through the later
silent era largely through the significant talents of German
geologist-turned-director Arnold Fanck. His influenced on others
included one of his leading men, a young Austrian World War I veteran
officer of mountain troops named Luis Trenker. Trenker had already
starred in two Fanck mountain films and was the first leading man (1926)
of the controversial Leni Riefenstahl, Fanck's muse - of sorts. Fanck
did the screenplay of a dramatic interpretation of the 1865 race between
England, Switzerland, and Italy to first climb the Matterhorn in
Switzerland for a 1928 film directed by Italian actor-director Mario
Bonnard with Trenker as the historical Italian competitor 'Jean-Antoine
Carrel'. Trencker, a gifted sort of Renaissance man of many talents,
turned to being director, writer, and producer as well in 1930. After
several of his own Bergfilms and other efforts he decided to once again
visit the Matterhorn subject in concert with British also
actor-turned-director Milton Rosmer and then expatriate Hungarian writer
Emeric Pressburger to do a British version of his German rendition of
the drama which he called The Mountain Calls (1938). Trenker directed
and co-starred as Carrel-once again-in his version, while he co-directed
as alpine action supervisor and again played Carrel in the British
version The Challenge (1938). Historically, the race was won by a little
known young British mountaineer, 'Edward Whymper', and Douglas with a
striking theatrical resemblance to Whymper got the part. Due to
Trenker's expertise as a mountaineer, the climbing sequences are very
realistic and even the somewhat over dramatic dialog is stirring. Of the
two films fortunately Douglas was perhaps the best remembered performer,
although the German version on a whole was the more even, largely due to
Trenker's considerable abilities as the go-to guy for just about
anything needed to put a film in the can.
For Douglas it was a
busy 1939 with film work capped by his being one of the first British
actors to enlist as World War II loomed. He became a Royal Navy pilot
and would serve until 1946. He did one more British film and also
produced, directed, and starred in "Lighten Our Darkness" on stage in
London before heading over the Atlantic for good in 1947. He had been
back to Broadway in 1931-32 and 1935 for two plays, the second, "Most of
the Game", with his second wife, British actress Dorothy Hyson. And he
had returned in 1942 for the musical "The Time, the Place, and the
Girl". But now he had a Warner Bros. contract in hand and was on his way
to a future in Hollywood. What followed was a few years of WB contract
work that found Douglas the noble villain - and with his iron lipped
scowl and a contrived harsh voice he could look any such part with a
steady verve. He was first cast opposite a fast dissipating Errol Flynn,
walking through the rather lackluster Adventures of Don Juan (1948). But
he and Flynn got along fine and became friends and teamed again for Kim
(1950), a much better film. A much more substantial role came to Douglas
in the next year's The Fountainhead (1949), part of individualist Ayn
Rand's corpus of heavy-handed hedonistic philosophy which amid the cast
included vivacious-wholesome but downright sexy-newcomer Patricia Neal.
With its dense and challenging dialog, Douglas considered it one of his
favorite efforts. And there were other substantial amid many good
efforts as Douglas moved into the 1950s and toward some freelance studio
hopping. But certainly he was much in demand if not something of a
fixture as the less than noble noble in such well known literary yarns
as Ivanhoe (1952) and The Prisoner of Zenda (1952), and the concocted At
Sword's Point (1952) all in one year.
By the mid 1950s he was
spending half his time exploring acting on the small screen and like his
now more modest movie parts as a more senior character actor. But
Douglas was not one to waste time. He was noticeably absent from acting
in 1956 for the very reason that he had returned to Broadway - not as an
actor but as a director (and producer for one) of four original comedy
plays through that year. Though he had occasional roles into the late
1970s, Douglas launched into an unusually prolific life as a TV director
starting in 1960. As such he supervised the shooting of nearly 40
episodic series - a full spectrum of popular shows from his start with
"Maverick" and the list of heartthrob private eye series, to TV
playhouse productions, many other westerns, law and order fare, and
varied dramas. In many cases he returned to do multiple episodes, and in
fact he became a directorial regular (16 episodes) on the World War II
drama "Twelve O'Clock High", during its sagging second and third
seasons, no doubt his own air combat experience being a telling factor
in his longevity. Douglas's one directorship on the big screen was for
the British well regarded if economic spy thriller Night Train to Paris
(1964).
Still active as a TV director in 1982, Douglas thereafter
retired but continued to appear on TV, providing historical perspective
of the movie past, one in particular being his remembrances of an old
friend in the 1983 documentary "Errol Flynn: Portrait of a
Swashbuckler".
He married twice, first Suzanne Weldon (23 August
1946 - 31 January 1995 (her death)) and secondly to Dorothy Hyson (21
May 1935 - 1945) (divorced). His two children by his second wife Suzanne
are son Robert Giles Finlayson of Encinitas, California, and daughter
Lucinda Gail Gabri of Scotch Plains, New Jersey.
At nearly 90
years old Robert Douglas died of natural causes on 11th January 1999 in
Encinitas, California, USA after as thoroughly an engaging film life as
could ever be imagined. |
Sources
Sources for this article include:
• IMDb.com, Inc
Any contributions will be
gratefully accepted
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