Web Page  No 2288

12^th August 2016

Top Picture: George Sanders

Second Picture: Shere Khan from the Jungle Book

George Sanders

There was a time in the 1960s that Hollywood craved anything essentially English and a cultured voice was much in demand and George Sanders was one of those who broke through into the American film industry

The irony was that George Henry Sanders was actually born in Saint Petersburg in Russia number 6 Petrovski Ostrov in 1906. His parents were Henry Peter Ernest Sanders (1868–1960) and Margarethe Jenny Bertha Sanders (1883–1967) née Kolbe, born in Saint Petersburg, of mostly German, but also Estonian and Scottish ancestry. A biography published in 1990 claimed that his father was the illegitimate son of a Russian noblewoman of the Czar’s court and a prince of the House of Oldenburg, married to a sister of the Czar. The actor Tom Conway (1904–1967) was George Sanders's elder brother. Their younger sister, Margaret Sanders, was born in 1912.

George Sanders was also a singer-songwriter, music composer, and author. His career as an actor spanned more than 40 years. His upper-class English accent and bass voice often led him to be cast as sophisticated but villainous characters. He is perhaps best known as Mr. Freeze in a two-parter episode of Batman(1966) and the voice of the malevolent man-hating tiger Shere Khan in Disney's The Jungle Book (1967), and as Simon Templar, "The Saint", in five films made in the 1930s and 1940s.

When he was 11 in 1917 because of the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, the family moved to England. Like his brother, he attended Bedales School and Brighton College then went on to Manchester Technical College. After graduating he worked at an advertising agency, where the company secretary, the aspiring actress Greer Garson, suggested that he take up a career in acting.

He took her advice and made his British film debut in 1929. Seven years later, after a series of British films, he took his first role in an American production in Lloyd's of London (1936) as Lord Everett Stacy. His smooth upper-class English accent, his sleek manner and his suave, superior and somewhat threatening air made him in demand for American films for years to come. He gravitated to supporting roles in A-pictures, often with all-British casts, such as Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940 and in the same director's Foreign Correspondent, later that year, where he played one of his few heroic parts in a Europe threatened by Fascism.

His early leading roles were in B-pictures and adventure serials; in his first American job as a leading man was in "International Settlement," (1938) playing a sophisticated British man of danger; it did so well that it led to the title role in two popular wartime film series with similar characters, one of these series was based on The Falcon and the other on The Saint. He played a smooth American Nazi in Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) with Edward G. Robinson. Rage in Heaven (1941). In 1942 he handed the role of the Falcon to his brother Tom, in The Falcon's Brother.

For his role as the cold-blooded theatre critic Addison DeWitt in All About Eve (1950) he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Later he appeared with Peter Sellers  in the Pink Panther sequel A Shot in the Dark (1964). A Peter Seller always claimed that George had inspired his character Hercules Grytpype-Thynne in The Goon Show.

In another venture he went into television with the series The George Sanders Mystery Theater (1957) and he played an upper-crust English villain, G. Emory Partridge, in two episodes of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. 

Two ghostwritten crime novels were published under his name to cash in on his fame at the height of his wartime film series. The first was Crime on My Hands (1944) mentioning his Saint and Falcon films. This was followed by Stranger at Home in 1946. Both were actually written by female authors: the former was by Craig Rice, and the latter by Leigh Brackett.

1958 he recorded an album called The George Sanders Touch: Songs for the Lovely Lady featuring lush string arrangements of romantic ballads. After going to great lengths to get the role he appeared in the Broadway cast of South Pacific, but was overwhelmed with anxiety over the singing and quickly dropped out. He also signed on for the role of Sheridan Whiteside in the stage musical Sherry! (1967but he found the stage production demanding and quit after his wife Benita Hume discovered that she had terminal bone cancer.

During the production of The Jungle Book Sanders he refused to provide the singing voice for his character Shere Khan during the final recording of the song, "That's What Friends Are For"and a substitute singer had to be found.

In October 1940 he married Susan Larson. The couple divorced in 1949. From later that year until 1954 Sanders was married to Zsa Zsa Gabor until their divorce. In February 1959 he married Benita Hume, widow of Ronald Colman. She died in 1967, the same year his brother Tom Conway died of liver failure. They had become distant because of Tom’s drinking.  Also a further blow in the same year was when his sister, Margaret Sanders died. His last marriage, in 1970, was to Magda Gabor, the elder sister of his second wife. This marriage lasted only 32 days, after which he began drinking heavily.

He started to suffer from dementia, worsened by waning health, he also had a minor stroke. He could not bear the prospect of losing his health or needing help to carry out everyday tasks, and became deeply depressed. At about this time he found that he could no longer play his grand piano, so he dragged it outside and smashed it with an axe. His last girlfriend persuaded him to sell his beloved house in Majorca, which he later bitterly regretted and from then on he drifted.

On 23rd April 1972, he checked into a hotel in Castelldefels, a coastal town near Barcelona. He was found dead two days later, having gone into cardiac arrest after swallowing the contents of five bottles of barbiturates. He left behind three suicide notes. His body was returned to Britain and his ashes were scattered in the English Channel.

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Peter

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On this day 12^th August 1960-1965

On 12/08/1960 the number one single was Please Don't Tease - Cliff Richard & the Shadows and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Rawhide (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 12/08/1961 the number one single was You Don't Know - Helen Shapiro and the number one album was Black & White Minstrel Show - George Mitchell Minstrels. The top rated TV show was Harpers West One (ATV) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Ipswich were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 12/08/1962 the number one single was I Remember You - Frank Ifield and the number one album was West Side Story Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Mont Blanc tunnel completed

On 12/08/1963 the number one single was Sweets For My Sweet - Searchers and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the week was the Great Train Robbery.

On 12/08/1964 the number one single was Do Wah Diddy Diddy - Manfred Mann and the number one album was A Hard Day's Night - Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 12/08/1965 the number one single was Help - The Beatles and the number one album was Help - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Riviera Police (AR) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.