A protégé of Austrian theatrical impresario Max Reinhardt, Francis Lederer's Byronic beauty was put to good use in Reinhardt's 1928 staging of Romeo and Juliet. That same year, he made his film debut at the Berlin über-studio UFA, where G. W. Pabst paired him with American actress Louise Brooks in Pandora's Box (1929). Cast in the 1931 premiere of the British play Autumn Crocus, Lederer brought the play to Broadway, where he drew the attention of Hollywood. Signed by RKO Radio Pictures, the actor struggled with English, prompting the studio to assign him a role requiring little of it - an Eskimo guide who crashes British society in J. Walter Ruben's Man of Two Worlds (1934). Sensitive to a potential backlash against Lederer's "ug-ug" dialogue, the RKO publicity department went on the offensive: "Adored by a world of women, envied by millions of men, the star of Autumn Crocus ... hurls his blazing genius into a drama of barbaric love." At MGM Irving Thalberg saw great things for Lederer but further plans went unrealized with Thalberg's death in 1936. An American citizen after 1939, Lederer returned often to the stage but is best remembered for starring in Paul Landres' creepy economy shocker The Return of Dracula (1958).

By Richard Harland Smith