Georges Sanders was born on July 3, 1906 in St. Petersburg, in a family of wealthy Englishmen living in Russia. Later, during the revolution, his family returned home. After graduating from Brighton College, he worked for some time in the textile industry, then in a tobacco factory in South America, after which he returned to the UK. Working in one of the advertising agencies, he met the future actress Greer Garson, then still an ordinary secretary, who advised him to start an acting career. He
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Georges Sanders was born on July 3, 1906 in St. Petersburg, in a family of wealthy Englishmen living in Russia. Later, during the revolution, his family returned home. After graduating from Brighton College, he worked for some time in the textile industry, then in a tobacco factory in South America, after which he returned to the UK. Working in one of the advertising agencies, he met the future actress Greer Garson, then still an ordinary secretary, who advised him to start an acting career. He began with small roles in the theater, and in the mid-thirties he made his film debut.
After several passing British films, Sanders went to Hollywood in 1936, where he played one of his first notable roles, Lord Everett Stacy in the historical film Lloyds from London (Henry King). Despite the fact that the role was small, it was thanks to her that he was able to sign a contract with the film studio XX Century Fox. In America, Sanders became known for a series of detective films about the clever adventurer Simon Templar, nicknamed “The Saint”, which were very popular with the audience. Between 1939 and 1941, Sanders starred in five such films, but despite the popularity of these films, the actor himself admitted years later that he considers them the lowest point in his career. After the last Templar movie Saint in Palm Springs (1941, Jack Highley) was released, the management of the RKO studio began a new adventure series Hawk about detective Lawrence. In fact, this series largely repeated the previous one, and in 1942, after four films, Sanders left, losing the main role to his older brother Thomas Sanders, who starred in the movie under the pseudonym Tom Conway. In the intervals between routine work, the actor managed to play in other films, in particular, he played two memorable supporting roles in Alfred Hitchcock - the repulsive and slippery type of Jack Favell in Rebecca (1939) and British secret agent Scott Folliott in Foreign Correspondent (1940).
In the forties, he appeared in a number of leading roles in such films as Black Swan (1942, Henry King), The Strange Case with Uncle Harry (1945, Robert R. Folliot) in Leod M. Leoge's (1947). For most of his career in Hollywood, Sanders has played the roles of gallant and courteous, sometimes sinister, cynics. Among the abundance of negative characters he played, the most striking were the decadent Lord Henry Watton in Portrait of Dorian Gray (1945, Albert Levine) and the cynical theater critic Addison DeWitt in the drama All About Eve (1950, directed by Joseph Leo Mankiewicz). For the role of DeWitt in 1951, Sanders was awarded an Oscar for best supporting actor. However, his role was not limited to scoundrels - he was just as convincing playing the desperate artist Charles Strickland in the film adaptation of Somerset Maugham's novel "The Moon and a Penny" (1943, dir. Albert Levine).
After the success of the film "All About Eve" followed by several more notable works in the films "I Can Buy It for You in bulk" (1951, Michael Gordon), "Ivengo" (1952, Richard Thorpe), "Call Me Madame" (1953, dir. Johnny Dawns.), and later in the film "Robert Laughter's" began his career (1954). In 1960, he published his autobiography Memoirs of a Professional Hum, which was devoted not so much to his life in cinema as to the personal observations and reflections of the actor. Sanders' later acting work was very heterogeneous. The best of these include Benjamin Bollon in Blake Edwards’ comedy Shot in the Dark (1964), Gibbs in Michael Anderson’s spy film Quiller Memorandum (1966), and Warlock in John Huston’s Cold War political thriller The Kremlin Letter (1970). In addition, in 1967, he voiced the tiger Sherhan in the feature-length animated film "The Jungle Book" (the last production work of the famous Walt Disney).
During his life, Sanders was married several times, including actresses Za Gabor, Benita Hume and later sister Za Magda. George Sanders died at the age of sixty-six on April 25, 1972 in Spain, at the Costa Brava Hotel in Barcelona, taking a lethal dose of sleeping pills (nembutal). His suicide note began with the words: "Dear World, I am leaving you because I am bored."
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