Hume Cronyn

Hume Cronyn (1911 - )

actor, screenwriter, theatre director
born July 18, 1911, London, Ontario
educated at Ridley College; McGill University, Montreal (pre-law); American Academy of Dramatic Arts, New York; the Mozarteum, Salzburg, Austria (acting)
simultaneous careers on stage and screen
significant Broadway presence (actor, director, producer and writer) since the 1930s
married actress Jessica Tandy in1942
screen debut as the armchair detective-neighbor in Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
also collaborated on the screenplays for Hitchcock's Rope (1948) and Under Capricorn (1949)
appeared as the ship's radio operator in Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944)
cast as ruthless, intelligent villains such as the Nazi collaborator in The Cross of Lorraine (1943) and the sadistic warden in Brute Force (1947)
played a jealous physician in People Will Talk (1951), Roosevelt's gruff counselor, Louis Howe, in Sunrise at Campobello (1960), and Polonius in Hamlet (1964)
teamed with Jessica Tandy, Cronyn has starred on Broadway (The Fourposter, A Delicate Balance, The Gin Game, Foxfire) on a TV series (The Marriage 1954) and, more recently in a series of old-codger roles in Cocoon (1985), and *Batteries Not Included (1987)
in 1994 Cronyn and Tandy won the first Tony Award for lifetime theatrical achievement.
quote: To act you must have a sense of truth and some degree of dedication.
autobiography: A terrible liar : a memoir (1991)
filmography