British postcard in the Film Partners Series, London, no. P 169. Photo: Paramount. Roland Young and Leila Hyams in Ruggles of Red Gap (Leo McCarey, 1935).
Balding and highly distinguished Roland Young (1887-1953) was an American film and theatre actor of British origin. He was best known for the role of Cosmo Topper in the three Topper film comedies.
Roland Young was born in 1887 in London, England. He was the son of an architect. Young enjoyed his school education at Sherborne College and later at London University. He decided to become an actor. Young acquired the necessary skills at the renowned Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). In 1908, at the age of 21, Young appeared on stage in London for the first time in 'Find the Woman'. Four years later, he made his Broadway debut in 'Hindle Wakes' (1912). Until the mid-1910s, Young was still taking on engagements in England, which meant that he alternated between New York and London. Young became an American citizen in 1918 and then served briefly on the American side as a soldier in the First World War. In 1921, he married his first wife, Marjorie Kummer, to whom he remained married until 1940. Young made his debut as a film actor as Doctor Watson in Sherlock Holmes (Albert Parker, 1922), alongside John Barrymore as Holmes and Gustav von Seyffertitz as Moriarty. On Broadway, Young performed equally well in droll farces and classic drama. His standout credits included productions of 'Hedda Gabler' (1923) and 'The Last of Mrs. Cheyney' (1927). He signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and made his talkie debut in the murder mystery The Unholy Night (Lionel Barrymore, 1929) with Ernest Torrence and Boris Karloff. He was loaned to Warner Bros. to appear in the drama Her Private Life (Alexander Korda, 1929), with Billie Dove and to Fox, winning critical approval for his comedic performance as Jeanette MacDonald's husband in Don't Bet on Women (William K. Howard, 1931). He was again paired with MacDonald in the romantic comedy Annabelle's Affairs (Alfred L. Werker, 1931). He appeared in Cecil B. de Mille's Western The Squaw Man (1931), and played opposite Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in The Guardsman (Sidney Franklin, 1931). His final film under his MGM contract was Lovers Courageous (Robert Z. Leonard, 1932), opposite Robert Montgomery. He had a starring role in a risqué comedy for Fox entitled Pleasure Cruise (Frank Tuttle, 1933) alongside Genevieve Tobin.
Roland Young's roles were mostly limited to British characters, in which he embodied the stereotypical image of the aristocratic Englishman. He appeared with Jeanette MacDonald, Genevieve Tobin and Maurice Chevalier in One Hour With You (Ernst Lubitsch, 1932). Alexander Korda invited him to return to Britain to make his British film debut in Wedding Rehearsal (1932). His best-known film was the screwball classic Topper (Norman Z. McLeod, 1937). Young played the bourgeois bank manager Cosmo Topper, whose orderly life is shaken up by the ghosts of his clients, Cary Grant and Constance Bennett. It was one of the most successful films of the year, and Young received an Oscar nomination for his role in the Best Supporting Actor category in 1938. He also starred in the sequels, Topper Takes a Trip (Norman Z. McLeod, 1938) and Topper Returns (Roy Del Ruth, 1941). Young is also known for his role as the villain Uriah Heep in the Charles Dickens adaptation David Copperfield (George Cukor, 1935) and for the British fantasy film The Man Who Would Change the World (Lothar Mendes, 1936) based on a short story by H.G. Wells. He often played eccentric characters, such as the inebriated Earl of Burnstead, who loses his valet Charles Laughton in a poker game, in Ruggles of Red Gap (Leo McCarey, 1935) or the rich uncle of Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story (George Cukor, 1940). He continued working steadily through the 1940s, playing small roles opposite some of Hollywood's leading actresses, such as Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, Paulette Goddard and Greta Garbo in her final film, Two-Faced Woman (George Cukor, 1941). In 1945, he began his radio show and appeared in the film adaptation of Agatha Christie's classic whodunnit And Then There Were None (René Clair, 1945). By the end of the decade, his film career had declined, and his final films, including The Great Lover (Alexander Hall, 1949), in which he played a murderer opposite Bob Hope, and Fred Astaire's Let's Dance (Norman Z. MacLeod, 1950), were not successful. Roland Young found his second wife, Dorothy Patience May DuCroz, in 1948, with whom he spent the last years of his life. Roland Young had no children. In 1953, he died in New York of natural causes at the age of 65. He was honoured with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his film and television work.
Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia (English and German) and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
