Luis van Rooten

Luis d'Antin van Rooten (November 29, 1906 – June 17, 1973) was an American actor, author, artist, designer and architect. He was sometimes credited as Louis Van Rooten.

Early life Van Rooten was born on November 29, 1906 in Mexico City, Mexico. His father worked as a translator and clerk at the American Embassy. Some sources say his father was killed during the Mexican Revolution.

In 1914, when he was 8, Van Rooten emigrated to the United States with his Belgian grandmother. Because he had no papers, his grandmother claimed van Rooten was her son, which resulted in the elongation of his name to Luis Ricardo Carlos Fernand d’Antin y Zuloaga van Rooten.

Education and early career Van Rooten attended a boarding school in Pennsylvania and earned his BA in architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in 1927. He enjoyed a successful career as an architect in Cleveland, Ohio before his love for acting led to a career as one of radio and television's most prolific character actors and narrators.

Film work His facility with languages made van Rooten an in-demand military radio announcer during World War II. He conducted a variety of broadcasts in Italian, Spanish, and French. This led to film work, often in roles requiring an accent or skill with dialects.

Known for his villainous roles, he played Nazi ringleader Heinrich Himmler in The Hitler Gang (1944) and Operation Eichmann (1961). He played supporting roles with a number of film stars, including Alan Ladd in Two Years Before the Mast (1946) and Beyond Glory (1948), Charles Laughton in The Big Clock (1948), Veronica Lake in Saigon (1948), Edward G. Robinson in Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948), and Kirk Douglas in Detective Story (1951). He provided the voices for both the King and the Grand Duke in Walt Disney's animated film Cinderella (1950), as well as the Heavenly Express conductor in the Tom and Jerry cartoon, Heavenly Puss (1949).

Van Rooten's obituary in The New York Times noted that he worked on as many as 50 shows a month because of his ability to do dialects and criminals.

Radio, Broadway and television Van Rooten found steady work doing the narration in addition to acting in films, live television and radio dramas. One of his first film narration jobs was Industrial Ohio, a 1938 film in the SOHIO Let's Explore Ohio series.

He acted in The Mysterious Traveler and, during the New York run of I Love a Mystery, played "The Maestro" in the 1949 story "Bury Your Dead, Arizona" and ranch foreman Jasper in the 1950 story "The Battle of the Century." He portrayed the evil Roxor in the late 1940s revival of the radio serial Chandu the Magician and portrayed the title character's sidekick, Denny, in Bulldog Drummond. Van Rooten played Emilio in the radio soap opera Valiant Lady. In "Joey Was Different," the August 22, 1949 edition of Radio City Playhouse, he played sixteen different characters in addition to writing the script.

Van Rooten performed on Broadway in Eugene O'Neill's A Touch of the Poet (1958) and John Osborne's Luther (1963). He worked on television, playing the fictional French detective Maigret in a 1952 episode of the anthology series Suspense. In 1958, he guest-starred as murderer Samuel D. Carlin in the Perry Mason episode, "The Case of the One-Eyed Witness". Van Rooten also appeared in an uncredited role on The Honeymooners as Mr. Johnson, the landlord.

Books He is best known for his character work in films, but van Rooten was also a skilled artist and designer and the author of several sophisticated books of humor. These include Van Rooten's Book of Improbable Saints The Floriculturist's Vade Mecum of Exotic and Recondite Plants, Shrubs and Grasses, and One Malignant Parasite and Mots d'Heures: Gousses, Rames: The d'Antin Manuscript.

Mots D'Heures: Gousses, Rames

Van Rooten is well known for his book Mots d'Heures: Gousses, Rames: The d'Antin Manuscript (1967), a collection of poems, ostensibly written by an obscure and unsung Frenchman (with translations and commentary). Van Rooten used French words and phrases which, when spoken aloud with a French accent, produce English Mother Goose rhymes, a work of homophonic translation. The following example, when spoken aloud, sounds like the opening lines to "Humpty Dumpty":

The above lines translated into English:

Death Van Rooten died June 17, 1973, in Chatham, Massachusetts in the retirement home he had designed himself.

Filmography Year Title Role Notes1938 Industrial Ohio #1 Narrator A copy of the film is online in the Hagley Library Cinécraft Productions collection 1944 The Hitler Gang Heinrich Himmler 1946 Two Years Before the Mast 2nd Mate Foster 1948 To the Ends of the Earth Commissioner Alberto Berado The Big Clock Edwin Orlin Saigon Simon To the Victor Geran Beyond Glory Dr. White Night Has a Thousand Eyes Mr. Myers The Gentleman from Nowhere F.B. Barton 1949 Boston Blackie's Chinese Venture Bill Craddock Heavenly Puss Gatekeeper Cooper Voice City Across the River Joe Cusack Champion Harris The Secret of St. Ives Clausel 1950 Cinderella King / Grand Duke Voices 1951 Detective Story Joe Feinson My Favorite Spy Rudolf Hoenig 1952 Lydia Bailey General Charles LeClerc 1953 The Great Adventure Narrator (Anders as an adult) (U.S. version), Voice 1955 The Sea Chase Matz Studio One Lutz Season 8 Episode 9: "The Judge and His Hangman" 1957 The Unholy Wife Ezra Benton 1958 Alfred Hitchcock Presents Leon Season 3 Episode 22: "The Return of the Hero" Fräulein Fritz Graubach Curse of the Faceless Man Dr. Carlo Fiorillo 1961 Operation Eichmann Heinrich Himmler 1968 What's So Bad About Feeling Good? Dr. Fowler Uncredited, (final film role)