Vintage postcard, no. 61. Photo: M.G.M.
Belgian collector card by Kwatta, Bois d'Haine, no. C. 231. Photo: M.G.M. Louis Calhern in Arch of Triumph (Lewis Milestone, 1948).
A wide range of aristocratic, paternal, emotionally cold, tragic and comedic characters
Louis Calhern was born Carl Henry Vogt in Brooklyn, New York, in 1895. His parents, Eugene Adolf and Hubertina (Friese) Vogt, had migrated to New York from Germany. The family moved to Saint Louis, Missouri, where he grew up. His career in the professional theatre began when he was seventeen and a player on his high school's football team. Grace George's travelling Shakespeare repertory company came to St. Louis to present 'Much Ado About Nothing' and hired the football team to appear as extras in the show. Right then and there, the theatre bug hit him good and proper.
During the First World War, he began training as an actor in New York. Due to the anti-German sentiment during World War I, he adopted a pseudonym for his German name. His stage name is an amalgamation of his hometown of St Louis and his first and middle names, Carl and Henry (Calhern). Louis Calhern celebrated his first major success on Broadway in New York in 1923.
Numerous stage successes were to follow there, including as King Lear after William Shakespeare, as the colonel in Franz Werfel's 'Jakobowsky and the Colonel' and in the role of the American U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in 'The Magnificent Yankee'.He not only played Holmes for a long time on stage, but also in the 1950 film version, for which he received an Oscar nomination.
In 1921, Louis Calhern appeared in three silent films, all co-starring Claire Windsor and all directed and written by female film pioneer Lois Weber: What's Worth While?, Too Wise Wives, and The Blot. In 1923, Calhern left the cinema, deciding to devote his career entirely to the stage.
With the advent of the sound film, he returned and played a wide range of aristocratic, paternal, emotionally cold, tragic and comedic characters. Calhern played Ambassador Trentino of Sylvania in the Marx Brothers comedy Duck Soup (Leo McCarey, 1933). He also acted with the comedy duo Robert Woolsey and Bert Wheeler in Diplomaniacs (William A. Seiter, 1933). He played in such thrillers as 20. 000 Years in Sing Sing (Michael Curtiz, 1932) as a mobster alongside Spencer Tracy and Bette Davis, and historical dramas such as The Last Days of Pompeii (Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1935). He played the unscrupulous prosecutor Villefort alongside Robert Donat in the Alexandre Dumas adaptation The Count of Monte Cristo (Rowland V. Lee, 1934), and he was Major Dort in The Life of Emile Zola (William Dieterle, 1937), starring Paul Muni. The film won the Oscar for Best Picture.
American postcard by Tichnor Bros Inc., Boston, Mass, no. 68686. Dorothy Gish and Louis Calhern in the stage production 'Life With Father' at the Walnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia, Pa.
German collector card. Photo: RKO Radio Film. Ingrid Bergman and Louis Calhern in Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946).
A late career peak in MGM productions
In 1940, Louis Calhern left Hollywood for two and a half years. Returning to the east, he joined the touring company of the tremendous stage hit, 'Life With Father', starring opposite Dorothy Gish. The show set a modern record in Boston by running there for twenty-two consecutive weeks. Calhern continued to tour with the play for two years and even replaced Howard Lindsay of the original New York cast for six weeks in the fall of 1942.
Back in Hollywood, he played the somewhat stiff father of Don Ameche in Ernst Lubitsch's classic comedy Heaven Can Wait (1943). After the war, Calhern played the head of the US Secret Service in Hitchcock's spy drama Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946), starring Ingrid Bergman. He also appeared with Bergman in the drama Arch of Triumph (Lewis Milestone, 1948). In 1949, Calhern replaced actor Frank Morgan, who died of a heart attack while filming Annie Get Your Gun.
In 1950, he experienced a late career peak in MGM productions. In addition to his Oscar-nominated role of Oliver Wendell Holmes in The Magnificent Yankee (John Sturges, 1950), he also played the ageing Buffalo Bill in the film version of the musical Annie Get Your Gun (George Sidney, 1950) and Marilyn Monroe's fatherly friend and head of a gang of criminals in The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston, 1950). In 1950, Calhern also undertook the extremely challenging title role in John Houseman's stage production of William Shakespeare's 'King Lear.' Supported by Nina Foch and Jo Van Fleet, he was universally lauded for his portrayal. Two years later, he played alongside Marilyn Monroe once again in the romantic comedy We're Not Married (Edmund Goulding, 1952). This was followed by roles in the adventure films The Prisoner of Zenda (Richard Thorpe, 1952) alongside Stewart Granger and as Baal Priest alongside Lana Turner in The Prodigal (Richard Thorpe, 1955).
Calhern won a Special Jury Prize at the 15th Venice International Film Festival for his performance in Executive Suite (Robert Wise, 1954). The film, which took a look behind the closed doors of a corporation in crisis, featured such luminaries as William Holden, Fredric March, and Barbara Stanwyck. He played the title role in Julius Caesar (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1955) opposite Marlon Brando as Marc Antony. He acted alongside Clark Gable in the war drama Betrayed (Gottfried Reinhardt, 1954) and played a cynical teacher in the drama Blackboard Jungle (Richard Brooks, 1955). He also performed in the film musicals Rhapsody (Charles Vidor, 1954), with Elizabeth Taylor, and High Society (Charles Walters, 1955) as Grace Kelly's cheerfully lecherous Uncle Willie.
Louis Calhern battled alcohol addiction for much of his adult life. As a result, he missed out on several cinema and stage roles. He finally overcame his alcohol addiction towards the end of the 1940s. In 1956, Calhern died of a heart attack at the age of 61 in Nara, Japan, when he starred in the film The Teahouse of the August Moon (Daniel Mann, 1956) with Glenn Ford and Marlon Brando. Calhern's part as Colonel Wainwright Purdy III was taken over by Paul Ford. His body was cremated and interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. Calhern married and divorced four actresses. From 1926 to 1927, he was married to Ilka Chase. From 1927 to 1932 to Julia Hoyt, from 1933 to 1942 to Natalie Schafer and from 1946 to 1955 to Marianne Stewart, the daughter of Reinhold Schünzel. Ken Dennis at Films of the Golden Age: "With his amazing versatility, he played witty raconteurs, lecherous sugar daddies, dastardly villains, double-dealing lawyers, and such historical figures as Julius Caesar, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Buffalo Bill Cody with equal skill. Despite a frequently turbulent domestic life and a long battle with alcoholism, Louis Calhern was the complete professional and every inch the distinguished gentleman."
British postcard in the Picturegoer series, London, no. W. 868. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Betty Hutton, J. Carrol Naish and Louis Calhern in Annie Get Your Gun (George Sidney, 1950).
British postcard on the Picturegoer Series, London, no. D 252. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Stewart Granger, Louis Calhern and Deborah Kerr in The Prisoner of Zenda (Richard Thorpe, 1952).
Sources: Ken Dennis (Films of the Golden Age), Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English) and IMDb.
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