Sydney Greenstreet

Sydney Hughes Greenstreet (December 27, 1879 – January 18, 1954) was a British and American character actor. While he did not begin his career in films until the age of 61, he had a run of significant motion pictures in a Hollywood career lasting through the 1940s. He is best remembered for the three Warner Bros. films – The Maltese Falcon (1941, his first film role), Casablanca, and Passage to Marseille (1944) – with both Humphrey Bogart (five films total with Greenstreet) and Peter Lorre (nine films with Greenstreet, three of which were also with Bogart). Greenstreet was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Maltese Falcon. He portrayed Nero Wolfe on radio during 1950 and 1951. He became an American citizen in 1925.

Early life Sydney Hughes Greenstreet was born on December 27, 1879, in Eastry, Kent, The 1891 census finds Greenstreet and three of his brothers living at Dane Hill School, Margate, a boarding school for boys aged ten to eighteen, with the Rev. Charles Boulden as headmaster. Greenstreet had seven siblings. He left home at the age of 18 to make his fortune as a Ceylon tea planter, but drought forced him out of business. He began managing a brewery and, to escape boredom, took acting lessons.

Career Greenstreet's stage debut was as a murderer in a 1902 production of a Sherlock Holmes story at the Marina Theatre, Ramsgate, Kent. He toured Britain with Ben Greet's Shakespearean company, and in 1905 made his New York City debut in Everyman. He appeared in such plays as a revival of As You Like It (1914). He appeared in numerous plays in Britain and America, working through most of the 1930s with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne at the Theatre Guild. His stage roles ranged from musical comedy to Shakespeare, and years of such versatile acting on two continents led to many offers to appear in films. He refused until he was 61.

In 1941, Greenstreet began working for Warner Bros. His debut film role was as Kasper Gutman ("The Fat Man") co-starring with Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon. He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California, in the Utility Columbarium area of the Great Mausoleum, inaccessible to the public. He was survived by his only child, John Ogden Greenstreet (1920–2004), from his marriage to Dorothy Marie Ogden. Actor Mark Greenstreet is his great-nephew.

Academy Award nomination

Year Film Category Result1941 The Maltese Falcon Best Supporting Actor

Filmography Year Title Role Notes 1941 The Maltese Falcon Kasper Gutman Nominated Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor They Died with Their Boots On Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott 1942 Across the Pacific Dr. Lorenz Casablanca Signor Ferrari 1943 Background to Danger Col. Robinson 1944 Passage to Marseille Major Duval Between Two Worlds Rev. Tim Thompson The Mask of Dimitrios Mr. Peters The Conspirators Ricardo Quintanilla Hollywood Canteen Himself 1945 Pillow to Post Col. Michael Otley Conflict Dr. Mark Hamilton Christmas in Connecticut Alexander Yardley 1946 Three Strangers Jerome K. Arbutny Devotion William Makepeace Thackeray The Verdict Supt. George Edward Grodman 1947 That Way with Women James P. Alden The Hucksters Evan Llewellyn Evans 1948 Ruthless Buck Mansfield The Woman in White Count Alessandro Fosco The Velvet Touch Capt. Danbury 1949 Flamingo Road Sheriff Titus Semple It's a Great Feeling Himself Uncredited Malaya The Dutchman