Michael Rennie

The 6' 4" tall Rennie attracted the interest of a casting director at Gaumont British, who took him on as an extra. Rennie said entering the film industry at this level was a deliberate strategy, so he could learn how pictures were made.[3] Head of production Michael Balcon said Rennie was taken on "because he was good-looking and athletic. He knew nothing of acting, but was given a contract to play small parts and to work as stand-in for players such as Robert Young and John Loder."[4]

Rennie's first screen acting was an uncredited bit part in the Alfred Hitchcock film Secret Agent (1936), standing in for Robert Young. Balcon says he saw Rennie act in a scene in East Meets West (1936) and fired him immediately afterwards. Balcon wrote "I had seen the rushes of that day's filming and had at once decided that Rennie was far too inexperienced to justify big screen parts."[4]

The 1937 screen test, which exists in the British Film Institute (BFI) archives under the title "Marguerite Allan and Michael Rennie Screen Test", did not lead to a film career for either performer.[5]

Balcon says Rennie "took his setback well, left the studios, and went off to learn his job in repertory."[4] Rennie worked mostly in Yorkshire, eventually becoming a star with the York Repertory Company. Among his roles were as Professor Henry Higgins in Pygmalion.

He also played other bit parts and minor unbilled roles in other films, including The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1936), Conquest of the Air (1937), The Squeaker (1937), Gangway (1937), The Divorce of Lady X (1938), Bank Holiday (1938), This Man in Paris (1939) and The Briggs Family (1940). He later said he strove to perfect a "mid-Atlantic accent" that could easily be understood by American as well as British audiences which resulted in people thinking he was Canadian.[2]

Shortly after the outbreak of war in Europe on 1 September 1939, Rennie began to receive offers for larger film roles, including This Man Is Dangerous (1940), Dangerous Moonlight (1941) and Pimpernel Smith (1941). Rennie auditioned again for Michael Balcon, now head of Ealing Studios, and was cast in Ships with Wings.

While that film was being prepared, Rennie continued repertory work and accepted a one-line role in George Formby's Turned Out Nice Again. Balcon says Rennie "declared that he enjoyed it as he was playing a motor salesman, and this reminded him of the days when he tried to sell cars – without securing a single buyer."[4]

Rennie had his first big film role in the suspense drama Tower of Terror (1941). This starred Wilfrid Lawson in the lead role as a crazed Dutch lighthouse keeper in the German-occupied Netherlands, while the second-billed Rennie and third-billed Movita had the romantic leads. In a 1951 interview Rennie said this was his worst part.[2]

Michael Balcon also used him in The Big Blockade (1942). He was called a "rapidly rising newcomer".[6] Another profile referred to him as an "athletic, Gable-ish young man."[7]

Rennie enlisted in the RAF Volunteer Reserve on 27 May 1941. "There has been a pause in Rennie's film career", wrote Balcon in 1942. "But there will be parts awaiting him when the war is over".[4]

He was officially discharged on 4 August 1942, and then on the following day, he was commissioned "for the emergency" as pilot officer number 127347 on probation in the General Duties Branch of the RAFVR. On 5 February 1943, he was promoted to flying officer on probation. He resigned his commission on 1 May 1944 (not discharged on disability, as the studio publicity stated).

Rennie had carried out his basic training near Torquay in Devon, after which he was sent to the United States for fighter pilot training under the Arnold Plan. In this programme, pilots of the RAF were trained by United States Army Air Forces instructors. One of his fellow students was RAF Sgt Jack Morton, who told an anecdote about when he and Rennie were in the same class:

At the end of our primary course we were posted to a Basic Flying School at Cochran Field, Macon, Georgia. The class which completed the course at Cochran Field was now split up, half were posted to Napier Field, Dothan, Alabama, to train on single-engine planes, and the remainder were posted to twin-engine schools. Like Cochran, Napier Field was a large permanent Air Corps Base and most of us were quite content to stay on the camp when we had time off. One of the cadets on our course had told us that he was a film actor, but no one took him seriously. We had to admit that he was right however when a film came to the camp cinema called Ships with Wings starring Michael Rennie.

With the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, Rennie was given his first film break, when cast alongside Margaret Lockwood, then at the peak of her popularity, in the musical I'll Be Your Sweetheart (1945), directed by Val Guest for Gainsborough Studios.[8][9] Rennie was billed below Lockwood and Vic Oliver, given an "introducing" credit, but his character was the actual protagonist of the film. The movie was not a large hit but Rennie received excellent notices, including a review from the US trade paper Variety who said his performance made the film "noteworthy" and that he was "likely Hollywood material... the best bet in the way of a new male star to have come out of a British studio in many years. Rennie not only has a lot on the ball as a straight lead, he knows the value of visual tricks. Femmes will go for him in a big way."[10]

He followed this in another movie with Lockwood at Gainsborough, the sensual costume adventure The Wicked Lady (both 1945). Rennie was the fifth lead, beneath Lockwood, James Mason, Patricia Roc and Griffith Jones. but it was a good part as the one true love of Lockwood's character. It was an excellent project to be associated with, the year's biggest box-office hit, subsequently ninth out of the ten highest-grossing British films of all time.[11]

Rennie's prestige was also raised when he was given a single prominent scene as a commander of Roman centurions in Gabriel Pascal's production of George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra (also 1945), starring Vivien Leigh and Claude Rains. The film's expense caused it to lose a large amount of money, despite its being highly successful at the box office, particularly in the U.S.

Rennie was now established as a leading actor. One report called him "the bobbysoxers' dark idol... Gainsborough's 1945 discovery."[12] He was mobbed by female fans on a personal appearance tour.[13]

Gainsborough teamed him with one of their biggest female stars, Phyllis Calvert, in the melodrama The Root of All Evil (1947).

In July 1946 it was announced Rennie had signed a five-year contract with Maurice Ostrer's new company, Premiere Productions, worth £300,000 – making him the highest paid film star in Britain.[14] Rennie's first film under a new contract was White Cradle Inn (1947), shot in Switzerland with Madeleine Carroll.[15] Rennie had been "loaned out" to another company to make it but then he made his first film for Ostrer at Premiere, The Idol of Paris (1948).[16] The film did so badly that Ostrer left the film industry.

Rennie made films for independent producers and his career momentum began to fade: Uneasy Terms (1948); Golden Madonna (1949) (again with Calvert); and two comedies for Val Guest: Miss Pilgrim's Progress (1949) and The Body Said No! (1950). He had what may be considered Rennie's only role as one of two central characters in a fully-fledged love story in the 47-minute episode "Sanatorium", the longest of the Somerset Maugham tales constituting the omnibus film Trio (1950); the 40-year-old Rennie and the 20-year-old Jean Simmons play patients and doomed lovers in the title institution, which caters to victims of tuberculosis.

Rennie was one of several English actors cast in the 20th Century Fox medieval adventure story The Black Rose (1950), shot in England starring Tyrone Power and Orson Welles. Rennie was specifically cast as the 13th-century King Edward I, whose 6' 2" (1.88 m) frame gave origin to his historical nickname "Longshanks". He was fifth-billed after Cécile Aubry and Jack Hawkins. Rennie became good friends with Power, who spoke well of the actor to Fox executives.[17]

Rennie's performance impressed Fox's studio head, Darryl F. Zanuck, who offered him a role in a film shot in Canada, The 13th Letter (1951). Directed by Otto Preminger, it was a remake of the French film Le Corbeau (The Raven, 1943), with the setting changed to the Canadian province of Quebec.

Fox was so pleased with Rennie's work that it offered him a seven-year contract in November 1950.[18]

Rennie as Klaatu in The Day the Earth Stood Still.

After Claude Rains turned down the role, Rennie received top billing in his next film, The Day the Earth Stood Still (also 1951), the first postwar, large-budget, "A" science-fiction film. It was a serious, high-minded exploration of mid-20th century suspicion and paranoia, combined with a philosophical overview of humanity's coming place in the larger universe. Rennie said director Robert Wise told him to do the role "with dignity but not with superiority".[2] (The story was later dramatised in 1954 on Lux Radio Theatre, with Rennie and Billy Gray recreating their original film roles. Seven years later, on 3 March 1962, when The Day the Earth Stood Still made its television premiere on NBC's NBC Saturday Night at the Movies, Rennie appeared in a two-minute introductory prologue before the start of the film.)

Rennie went on to support Power in I'll Never Forget You (1951) then had good roles in the ensemble drama Phone Call from a Stranger (1952) (where he played an American[19]) and in the wartime spy thriller, 5 Fingers (1952), as the agent who tracks down James Mason's spy. He did some narration for The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel (1951) and would provide voiceovers for several Fox films, such as Pony Soldier (1952), Titanic (1953), The Desert Rats (1953) and Prince Valiant (1954).

Buoyed by the strong critical reception and profitability of The Day the Earth Stood Still, Fox assigned much of the credit to the central performance of Rennie. Convinced that it had a potential leading man under contract, the studio decided to produce a new version of Les Misérables (1952) as a vehicle for him. The film was directed by Lewis Milestone, known for his early sound version of All Quiet on the Western Front. Rennie's performance was respectfully, but not enthusiastically, received by the critics. Ultimately, Les Misérables returned an extremely modest profit and put an end to any further attempts to promote the 43-year-old Rennie as a potential star. This caused the studio to cancel a project he was attached to in 1952 — Arms of Venus.[20]

He was, however, launched on a thriving career as a top supporting actor at Fox, often playing figures of authority, such as doctors or military officers.

Rennie was second-billed in Sailor of the King (also known as Single-Handed, 1953), playing an admiral, as supporting actor to Jeffrey Hunter. He was leading man to Jeanne Crain in a thriller, Dangerous Crossing (1953), which re-used sets and props from Titanic (also 1953), for which Rennie spoke the closing narration. He had a showy role as Saint Peter in The Robe (1953), the first movie in CinemaScope and the biggest hit of the year. The star was Richard Burton, who had essentially taken Rennie's place on the Fox lot as their "resident British star".

Rennie supported Tyrone Power once more in King of the Khyber Rifles (1954), as a brigadier in British India, then he played his first villain for Fox, an evil Khan in the "eastern", Princess of the Nile (1954), opposite Jeffrey Hunter. He reprised his role as Peter in Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954) and was lent out for Mambo (1954).

In Désirée (1954), Rennie played the future Charles XIV John of Sweden opposite Marlon Brando as Napoleon Bonaparte. The film was popular although not as highly regarded as other Brando films from this time. Soldier of Fortune (1955), was another hit, with Rennie as the head of British police in Hong Kong supporting Clark Gable and Susan Hayward.

On TV he played the attorney in an adaptation of The Letter (1955) with John Mills. He also received good reviews for his performance as an art dealer in "A Man of Taste" (1955) for Climax with Zsa Zsa Gabor.[21] Rennie enjoyed live TV. "You have greater performances as opposed to those in a filmed series", he said. "You are able to build and sustain a role in live TV whereas you have the problem of cutting, stopping and starting in a filmed show."[22]

Based on the positive reaction to his two turns as the Apostle Peter, Fox assigned him another third-billed, top-tier role as a stalwart man of God, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra, who, between 1749 and his death in 1784, founded missions in Alta California. The film was Seven Cities of Gold (1955), with Richard Egan and Anthony Quinn.

His next film was The Rains of Ranchipur (1955), assigned him fifth billing after the lead romantic teaming of Lana Turner and Richard Burton. As Turner's character's cuckolded husband, Lord Esketh, Rennie maintained his typical dignity and stiff upper lip. He supported Ginger Rogers in Teenage Rebel (1956) and had a good role as the man murdered by James Mason in Island in the Sun (1957), Darryl Zanuck's popular melodrama. His contract with Fox then wound up.

Rennie became a familiar face on television, taking the role of Harry Lime in The Third Man (1959–65), an Anglo-American syndicated television series very loosely derived from the film. It ran for several years but the schedule meant Rennie had plenty of time off to work on other projects. "Every scene of every show I do for money", he said.[22]

At the start of the 1960s, Michael Rennie made his only Broadway appearance in Mary, Mary playing Dirk Winsten, a jaded film star. After two previews, the sophisticated five-character marital comedy written by Jean Kerr and directed by Joseph Anthony opened at the Helen Hayes Theatre on 8 March 1961. It ran for a very successful 1,572 performances, closing at the Morosco Theatre on 12 December 1964. Rennie stayed with the production less than five months and was replaced by Michael Wilding in July 1961.

When Warner Bros. cast the film version in early 1963, Rennie, along with leading man Barry Nelson and supporting actor Hiram Sherman (who joined the play two years after the opening in the part first played by John Cromwell), were the only Broadway cast members to carry over. Debbie Reynolds was given the title role created by Barbara Bel Geddes, and Warner's contract player Diane McBain, whom the studio saw as a potential star of the future, took over "the socialite part" essayed by Betsy von Furstenberg. Mervyn LeRoy produced and directed the film, which opened at Radio City Music Hall on 25 October 1963.

Rennie's later films included Ride Beyond Vengeance (1966), Cyborg 2087 (1967), the all-star Hotel (1967), Death on the Run (1968), and The Young, the Evil and the Savage (1968).

He completed what amounted to guest roles in two films, The Power and The Devil's Brigade (both 1968), before moving to Switzerland in the latter part of that year. His final seven feature films were filmed in Britain, Italy, Spain and, in the case of Surabaya Conspiracy, the Philippines.

Within three years of leaving Hollywood, he journeyed to his mother's home in Harrogate, Yorkshire. It was there that he died on 10 June 1971.[1]