Hume Cronyn, one of the most versatile and honored character actors of the American stage and screen; and whose career included roles in such memorable films as Shadow of a Doubt, The Parallax View, and Cocoon, died on June 15 of prostate cancer at his home in Fairfield, Connecticut. He was 91.

Cronyn was born on July 18, 1911, in London, Ontario, Canada. His father, also named Hume, was a financier and a member of Canada's House of Commons, who had ambitions that his son would become a lawyer. While studying corporate law at McGill University in Montreal, he found himself attracted to the university's theater department. He made his stage debut with the Montreal Repertory Company at 19, and with a love of acting that was too encompassing, he left McGill in 1932 to study drama at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.

After graduating, he began to work with regional companies in Washington, DC and Virginia before making his Broadway debut in 1934 with a bit part as a janitor in Hipper's Holiday. The play was panned, but undaunted, he landed a role a year later in the touring production of George Abbott's Three Men on a Horse (1935). He received good reviews and when he returned to Broadway in 1936 to succeed Garson Kanin in Boy Meets Girl, it was a prominent role that set his career in high gear. He would work in several stage productions over the years, cutting his teeth on everything from Shakespeare to bedroom farces before making his film debut as a murder mystery enthusiast in Alfred Hitchcock's classic chiller Shadow of a Doubt (1943).

Cronyn scored critical raves in that film and his unique physical appearance (bookish features, only 127 pounds on a slight 5'6" frame), made him all the more effective in some offbeat parts: a German who awakens to the dangers of fascism in Fred Zinnemann's The Seventh Cross (1944 - Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor); a radio operator in Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944); a shyster lawyer in Tay Garnett's classic noir of adultery and murder The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946); and for many critics, his best performance of all his early roles, the sadistic prison guard Munsey in Jules Dassin's Brute Force (1947). He also worked behind the camera with Hitchcock to adapt two plays into films that became Rope (1948) and Under Capricorn (1949).

Cronyn steered away from Hollywood in the '50s and '60s and returned to the stage, often teaming with his wife Jessica Tandy, whom he'd married in 1942. They scored a hit in the 1951 Broadway production of Jan de Hartog's play, The Four Poster and it ran for two years. Cronyn also won his first Tony Award in 1964 in John Gielgud's production of Hamlet, where he played Polonius to Richard Burton's Hamlet, and a second Tony in 1968 for his work in A Delicate Balance.

In his later years Cronyn found some fine character parts in some good films: a skeptical newspaper editor in Alan J Pakula's paranoid political thriller The Parallax View (1974) starring Warren Beatty; as a narrow-minded school superintendent at loggerheads with teacher Jon Voight in Martin Ritt's thoughtful look at rural education Conrack (1974); and of course; Joe Finley, one of a group of elderly people who seek eternal youth in Ron Howard's popular hits Cocoon (1985) and Cocoon: The Return (1988), both films co-starred his wife Jessica Tandy.

Among his other accolades: Cronyn and Tandy were both elected to the Theater Hall of Fame in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the American Theater (1979); they received the Kennedy Center Lifetime Achievement medal (1986); and were awarded Tony Awards for their lifetime work in the theater (1994). Cronyn also won Emmy Awards for his performances in the television productions of Age-Old Friends (1989), and Broadway Bound (1992).

Cronyn's first marriage, to Emily Woodruff, ended in divorce; his second marriage to Tandy lasted until her death in 1994 and Cronyn remarried in 1996 to Susan Cooper, an award-winning writer of children's books. He is survived by Susan, son Christopher, daughters Tandy Cronyn and Susan Tettmer, eight grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

by Michael T. Toole