Michael Rennie

Movie Actor

Michael Rennie was born in England on August 25th, 1909 and is the Movie Actor. At the age of 61, Michael Rennie biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.

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Date of Birth
August 25, 1909
Nationality
United Kingdom
Place of Birth
England
Death Date
Jun 10, 1971 (age 61)
Zodiac Sign
Virgo
Profession
Actor, Film Actor, Stage Actor, Television Actor
Michael Rennie Height, Weight, Eye Color and Hair Color

At 61 years old, Michael Rennie physical status not available right now. We will update Michael Rennie's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Height
Not Available
Weight
Not Available
Hair Color
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Eye Color
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Build
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Measurements
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Michael Rennie Religion, Education, and Hobbies
Religion
Not Available
Hobbies
Not Available
Education
The Leys School
Michael Rennie Spouse(s), Children, Affair, Parents, and Family
Spouse(s)
Maggie McGrath, ​ ​(m. 1947; div. 1960)​, Joan England, ​ ​(m. 1938; div. 1945)​
Children
2
Dating / Affair
Not Available
Parents
Not Available
Michael Rennie Career

Rennie was born in Idle near Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, the second son of a Scottish wool mill owner, James Rennie, and his English wife Amelia (née Dobby). He had an elder brother William, younger brother Gordon and sister Edith. Rennie's family owned a wool business that had operated for over 150 years and were relatively well off. He was educated at the Leys School, Cambridge.

He went to work at the family wool mill in Bradford, but did not enjoy it. He worked in a number of occupations, including a stint as a car salesman, and sweeping floors in his uncle's steel ropes factory. He eventually decided (at the time of his 26th birthday, in 1935) on a career as an actor. He retained his surname but adopted Michael as his professional name. He cited Ronald Colman as his role model.

The 6' 4" tall Rennie attracted the interest of a casting director at Gaumont British who took him on as an extra. Rennie said this was a deliberate strategy so he could learn how films were made. 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."

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."

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.

Balcon says Rennie "took his setback well, left the studios, and went off to learn his job in repertory." 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.

Hollywood career

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.

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.

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". (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) 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 voice overs 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.

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. 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."

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.

Later career

During the 1960s, Rennie made guest appearances on such series as The Barbara Stanwyck Show, The Americans, Route 66 (a portrayal of a doomed pilot in the two-part episode "Fly Away Home"); Alfred Hitchcock Presents; Perry Mason (one of four actors in four consecutive episodes substituting for series star Raymond Burr, who was recovering from surgery); Wagon Train (a 90-minute colour episode as an English big game hunter). He played in The Great Adventure, an anthology series about remarkable events in American history, he portrayed Confederate president Jefferson Davis). He played Daniel Boone in the episodes "The Sound of Wings" and "First in War, First in Peace"); Lost in Space (another two-part episode. He played an all-powerful alien zookeeper in "The Keeper". He worked one last time with his Third Man co-star Jonathan Harris); The Time Tunnel as Captain Smith of the Titanic, in the series' premiere episode. He played in Batman (as the villainous Sandman, in league with Julie Newmar's Catwoman). He was in three episodes of The Invaders (as a benign variation of the Klaatu persona, culminating in a parallel plot also involving an assembly of world leaders). He was in an episode of I Spy ("Lana"). He was in two episodes of The F.B.I.; and was a THRUSH agent in an episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (1967 TV series) ("The Thrush Roulette Affair"/Barnaby Partridge).

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.

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