Miles Mander

Miles Mander (born Lionel Henry Mander; 14 May 1888 – 8 February 1946), was an English character actor of the early Hollywood cinema, also a film director and producer, and a playwright and novelist. He was sometimes credited as Luther Miles.

Early life
Miles Mander was the second son of Theodore Mander, builder of Wightwick Manor, of the prominent Mander family, industrialists and public servants of Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England. He was the younger brother of Geoffrey Mander, the Liberal Member of Parliament. He was educated at Harrow School, Middlesex (The Grove House 1901- Easter 1903), Loretto School (in Canada) and McGill University in Montreal.

He soon broke away from the predictable mould of business and philanthropy. He was an early aviator, a pioneer pilot, flying his Louis Blériot at Pau in 1909 and at the first all-British aviation meeting in July 1910. He won the cup for the first official flight at Brooklands in 1910, and acquired and built Hendon Aerodrome with Claude Grahame-White. He started free ballooning in 1912 and qualified as a pilot, gaining his Royal Aero Club certificate no. 31 on 17 June 1913. He served as a captain in the Royal Army Service Corps in World War I, 1915–19. He spent his twenties in New Zealand farming sheep, with his uncle, Martin Mander.

Film career
Miles Mander entered the British film industry as a writer, producer, and actor, often working with Adrian Brunel. In 1925, he appeared in two Gainsborough productions: The Prude's Fall (1925) and The Pleasure Garden (1926). The former was Alfred Hitchcock's last film as an assistant director to Graham Cutts and the latter was Hitchcock's directorial debut. In 1926–7 he made a series of pioneering sound films. Later he collaborated with Alma Reville, Hitchcock's wife, on the script of The First Born (1928), his feature debut as director, in which he co-starred with Madeleine Carroll. Carroll reappeared in his third film, Fascination (1931).

Mander is better remembered for his character portrayals of oily villains, many of them English gentlemen or upper crust cads – such as Cardinal Richelieu in the musical film The Three Musketeers (1939), a spoof in which the Ritz Brothers played lackeys who substituted for the real Musketeers. In his Hollywood debut, he had portrayed King Louis XIII in the much more serious 1935 version of that same Alexandre Dumas, père classic. One of his meatiest performances came as a dual role in the 1939 serial Daredevils of the Red Circle, in which he played both a kindly industrialist and the ruthless villain who impersonates him (played "out of makeup" by Charles Middleton). Other famous film credits included Wuthering Heights (1939) with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, in which he played Mr. Lockwood, the new tenant at the Grange, who is told the story of Cathy and Heathcliff. In the English version of G.W. Pabst's Don Quixote (1933), he played the Duke who invites Don Quixote and Sancho Panza to his castle, and in the original To Be or Not to Be (1942), he was one of the two British officers to whom Robert Stack first reveals his suspicions about the treacherous Professor Siletsky (Stanley Ridges).

Personal life


His first wife was Prativa Sundari Devi, a princess of Cooch Behar. She was the daughter of Maharaja Nripendra Narayan and Maharani Suniti Devi of Cooch Behar and paternal aunt of Gayatri Devi, Maharani of Jaipur.

His second wife was Kathleen ('Bunty') French, of Sydney, Australia, by whom he had a son, Theodore, to whom he dedicated a book of memoirs and advice, To My Son—in Confidence (1934). He died suddenly of a heart attack at the Brown Derby restaurant in Los Angeles, aged 57. He is currently buried at Ocean View Burial Park in Burnaby, Greater Vancouver Regional District, British Columbia, Canada.

As actor

 * Testimony (1920) (film debut)
 * A Scandal in Bohemia (1921) as Godfrey Norton
 * The Place of Honour (1921) as Lt. Devereaux
 * Half a Truth (1922) as Marquis Sallast
 * Open Country (1922) as Honorable William Chevenix
 * Lovers in Araby (1924) as Derek Fare
 * The Pleasure Garden (1925) as Levett
 * The Prude's Fall (1925) as Sir Neville Moreton
 * London Love (1926) as Sir James Daring
 * Tip Toes (1927) as Rollo Stevens
 * The Fake (1927) as Honourable Gerald Pillick
 * Parisiennes (1928) as Armand de Marny
 * The Joker (1928) as Mr. Borwick
 * The Physician (1928) as Walter Amphiel
 * Balaclava (1928) as Captain Gardner
 * The First Born (1928) as Sir Hugo Boycott
 * Perjury (1929) as Adolf Sperber
 * The Crooked Billet (1929) as Guy Morrow
 * Loose Ends (1930) as Raymond Carteret
 * Murder! (1930) as Gordon Druce
 * Mary (1931) as Gordon Moore
 * The Missing Rembrandt (1932) as Claude Holford
 * Lily Christine (1932) as Ambatriadi
 * That Night in London (1932) as Harry Tresham
 * Bitter Sweet (1933) as Captain Auguste Lutte
 * Don Quixote (1933) as The Duke of Fallanga
 * Loyalties (1933) as Capt. Ronald Dancy, DSO
 * The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) as Wriothesley
 * Matinee Idol (1933) as Harley Travers
 * The Four Masked Men (1934) as Rodney Fraser
 * The Battle (1934) as Feize
 * The Case for the Crown (1934) as James L. Barton
 * Death Drives Through (1935) as Garry Ames
 * Here's to Romance (1935) as Bert
 * The Three Musketeers (1935) as King Louis XIII
 * The Flying Doctor (1936) as Spectator at boxing match (uncredited)
 * Lloyd's of London (1936) as Jukes
 * Slave Ship (1937) as Corey
 * Wake Up and Live (1937) as James Stratton
 * Youth on Parole (1937) as Sparkler
 * Kidnapped (1938) as Ebenezer Balfour
 * The Mad Miss Manton (1938) as Mr. Fred Thomas
 * Suez (1938) as Benjamin Disraeli
 * The Three Musketeers (1939) as Cardinal Richelieu
 * The Little Princess (1939) as Lord Wickham
 * Wuthering Heights (1939) as Lockwood
 * Daredevils of the Red Circle (1939, Serial) as Horace Granville
 * The Man in the Iron Mask (1939) as Aramis
 * Stanley and Livingstone (1939) as Sir John Gresham
 * Tower of London (1939) as King Henry VI
 * The Earl of Chicago (1940) as Attorney General (uncredited)
 * Laddie (1940) as Mr. Charles Pryor
 * The House of the Seven Gables (1940) as Deacon Arnold Foster
 * Road to Singapore (1940) as Sir Malcolm Drake (uncredited)
 * Primrose Path (1940) as Homer Adams
 * Babies for Sale (1940) as Dr. Wallace Rankin
 * Captain Caution (1940) as Lt. Strope
 * South of Suez (1940) as Roger Smythe
 * Free and Easy (1941) as Solicitor (uncredited)
 * Shadows on the Stairs (1941) as Tom Armitage
 * That Hamilton Woman (1941) as Lord Keith
 * They Met in Bombay (1941) as Doctor (uncredited)
 * Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day (1941) as Dr. John F. Lockberg
 * Fly-By-Night (1942) as Prof. Langner
 * A Tragedy at Midnight (1942) as Dr Hilary Wilton
 * Captains of the Clouds (1942) as Winston Churchill (voice) (uncredited)
 * To Be or Not to Be (1942) as Maj. Cunningham
 * Fingers at the Window (1942) as Dr. Kurt Immelman
 * This Above All (1942) as Major
 * Tarzan's New York Adventure (1942) as Portmaster
 * Mrs. Miniver (1942) as German Agent on Radio (voice) (uncredited)
 * Somewhere I'll Find You (1942) as Floyd Kirsten (uncredited)
 * The War Against Mrs. Hadley (1942) as Doctor Leonard V. Meecham
 * Apache Trail (1942) as James V. Thorne
 * Lucky Jordan (1942) as Kilpatrick
 * Journey for Margaret (1942) as Minor Role (uncredited)
 * Secrets of the Underground (1942) as Paul Panois
 * Assignment in Brittany (1943) as Col. Herman Fournier
 * Five Graves to Cairo (1943) as Col. Fitzhume (uncredited)
 * First Comes Courage (1943) as Col. Wallace (uncredited)
 * Phantom of the Opera (1943) as Maurice Pleyel
 * Guadalcanal Diary (1943) as Weatherby (uncredited)
 * The Return of the Vampire (1943) as Sir Frederick Fleet
 * Madame Curie (1943) as Businessman (uncredited)
 * Four Jills in a Jeep (1944) as Col. Hartley (uncredited)
 * The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944) as Man (uncredited)
 * The White Cliffs of Dover (1944) as Major Loring at hospital (uncredited)
 * The Scarlet Claw (1944) as Judge Brisson
 * The Pearl of Death (1944) as Giles Conover
 * Enter Arsene Lupin (1944) as Charles Seagrave
 * Murder, My Sweet (1944) as Mr. Leuwen Grayle
 * The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) as Sir Robert Bentley
 * The Brighton Strangler (1945) as Chief Inspector W.R. Allison
 * Crime Doctor's Warning (1945) as Frederick Malone
 * Week-End at the Waldorf (1945) as British Secretary
 * Confidential Agent (1945) as Mr. Brigstock
 * The Bandit of Sherwood Forest (1946) as Lord Warrick
 * The Walls Came Tumbling Down (1946) as Dr. Marko
 * The Imperfect Lady (1947) as Mr. Rogan (final film)

As director

 * The Whistler (December 1926) short made in DeForest Phonofilm
 * The Sheik of Araby (December 1926) short made in Phonofilm
 * Knee Deep in Daisies (December 1926) short made in Phonofilm
 * The Fair Maid of Perth (December 1926) short made in Phonofilm
 * False Colours (April 1927) short made in Phonofilm
 * The Sentence of Death (April 1927), short made in Phonofilm
 * Packing Up (April 1927) short made in Phonofilm
 * As We Lie (April 1927) short film made in Phonofilm
 * The First Born (1928)
 * The Woman Between (1931)
 * Fascination (1931)
 * Youthful Folly (1934)
 * The Morals of Marcus (1935)
 * The Flying Doctor (1936)

As writer

 * Lovers in Araby (1924)
 * As We Lie (1927) (story)
 * The First Born (1928)
 * The Woman Between (1931)
 * L'Atlantide (1932) directed by G. W. Pabst
 * The Lodger (1932)
 * The Morals of Marcus (1935)
 * The Flying Doctor (1936)

As producer

 * The Man Without Desire (1923)
 * Knee Deep in Daisies (1926)
 * The First Born (1928)
 * The Flying Doctor (1936)
 * Watchtower Over Tomorrow (1945) (uncredited)