George Sanders


Actor
George Sanders

About

Birth Place
Russia
Born
July 03, 1906
Died
April 25, 1972
Cause of Death
Overdose Of Sleeping Pills

Biography

With his imperious gaze and resonant speaking voice, debonair British expatriate George Sanders was a perfect fit in Hollywood before and after World War II, playing cads, bounders, rogues and even the occasional hero. A contract with 20th Century Fox gave Sanders a home base in Tinseltown but he often did his best work for other studios, including the villains of Alfred Hitchcock's "Reb...

Photos & Videos

In Search of the Castaways - Movie Posters
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir - Movie Posters
Hangover Square - Lobby Cards

Family & Companions

Zsa Zsa Gabor
Wife
Actor. Second wife; married 1949, divorced 1957.
Benita Hume
Wife
Actor. Married from February 10, 1959 until her death on November 1, 1967; had previously been married to actor Ronald Colman.
Magda Gabor
Wife
Fourth wife; married 1970; sister of Zsa Zsa.

Bibliography

"Memoirs of a Professional Cad"
George Sanders (1960)

Biography

With his imperious gaze and resonant speaking voice, debonair British expatriate George Sanders was a perfect fit in Hollywood before and after World War II, playing cads, bounders, rogues and even the occasional hero. A contract with 20th Century Fox gave Sanders a home base in Tinseltown but he often did his best work for other studios, including the villains of Alfred Hitchcock's "Rebecca" (1940) for United Artists, Joe May's "The House of the Seven Gables" (1940) for Universal, and as swank soldier of fortune Simon Templar in "The Saint Strikes Back" (1940) and its sequels at RKO Radio Pictures. After the war, Fox slotted the epicene actor into a string of handsomely-mounted period pieces, including John Braham's "Hangover Square" (1945), Albert Lewin's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1945) and Joseph L. Mankiewicz's "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" (1947). Sanders won an Oscar for playing an acerbic theatrical critic in Mankiewicz's show biz satire "All About Eve" (1950), but a mania for evading income taxes drove him to accept substandard work in Europe - though his collaboration with neorealist pioneer Roberto Rossellini on the undervalued "Viaggio in Italia" (1954) marked what many considered to be his last great film performance. Widowed in 1969 and hobbled by a debilitating stroke that affected his speech, Sanders took his own life in Spain in 1972, drawing closed the curtain on the life of a consummate actor who could never completely camouflage, and was perhaps even a victim of, his own fierce intelligence.

George Henry Sanders was born in St. Petersburg, Russia on July 3, 1906. The second son of rope manufacturer Henry Sanders and his wife, Margaret Kolbe, a renowned horticulturist who gave up her career to support her husband's business affairs in Imperial Russia, Sanders was the beneficiary of a privileged and cultured childhood. He began his formal education at a Russian grade school but with the Communist overthrow of Tsar Nicholas II in October 1917, the Sanders family, which included older son Tom and younger daughter Margaret, fled to England. Educated at the Bedales School, Brighton College and later at Manchester Technical College, Sanders was primed to follow his father into the textile business. After a brief sojourn in South America and a failed bid to break into the tobacco trade, Sanders returned to the United Kingdom. While working as a copywriter for a London advertising agency, he took the advice of a fellow employee to pursue acting - Sanders' prescient co-worker was none other than future Hollywood leading lady Greer Garson.

Adept at playing piano, guitar and saxophone, and boasting a plummy baritone singing voice, Sanders made his stage debut in a 1932 London production of E. Y. Harberg and Lewis E. Gensler's Broadway revue "Ballyhoo of 1932" (which had failed, two years earlier, to launch the career of vaudevillian Bob Hope). That same year, he made his film debut with an uncredited bit as a pub singer in "Love, Life, and Laughter" (1934) starring Gracie Fields as a lowly publican's daughter who falls impossibly in love with visiting prince John Loder. Sanders had another walk-on as a pilot in William Cameron Menzies' science fiction classic "Things to Come" (1936), the first British film to cost more than $1 million. Following his casting in the short-lived Broadway production of Noel Coward's musical "Conversation Piece" in 1934, Sanders achieved co-star status in two British films underwritten by Hollywood studios - in the Fox Film Company's con man comedy "Find the Lady" (1936) and in Paramount British Pictures' smuggling drama "Strange Caro" (1936).

Signed to a long-term contract with 20th Century Fox in the States, Sanders first appeared for the studio in Henry King's Academy Award-nominated costumer "Lloyds of London" (1936), in support of stars Tyrone Power and Madeleine Carroll. His naturally aristocratic comportment and haughty mien made him a perfect fit for all manner of barons, dukes, and viscounts as well as doomed Sanders to play more than his fair share of cads. The actor was a member of a foreign spy ring in "Mr. Moto's Last Warning" (1939), one of a series of mysteries produced prior to World War II and starring Peter Lorre as an unflappable Japanese sleuth. On loan to RKO, Sanders fought for law and order as British crime writer Leslie Charteris' international soldier of fortune Simon Templar in "The Saint Strikes Back" (1939), a sequel to "The Saint in New York" (1938), which had starred Louis Hayward in the title role. Sanders would play Templar four more times before ending his run with "The Saint in Palm Springs" (1941).

It became custom for Sanders to play heroes and villains alike with the same air of imperious bemusement. In Universal's "The House of the Seven Gables" (1940), he proved himself one of the few actors capable of making Vincent Price seem virtuous by comparison. Alfred Hitchcock cast Sanders in two of his early Hollywood films, "Rebecca" (1940) and "Foreign Correspondent" (1940), as Joan Fontaine's disreputable cousin in the former and as Yankee hero Joel McCrea's British second banana in the latter. A perennial second male lead at Fox, Sanders returned to RKO to star as dapper detective Gay Lawrence, a.k.a. The Falcon, in another run of whodunits beginning with "The Gay Falcon" (1940). After shooting "The Falcon's Brother" in 1942, Sanders abdicated the series lead to his real life brother, Tom Conway, who went on to headline nine more Falcon outings. For Fritz Lang, Sanders played a Gestapo scoundrel in "Man Hunt" (1941) while in Jean Renoir's "This Land is Mind" (1943), he brought refreshing nuance to the role of a Fascist sympathizer who understands only too late the cruel consequence of his politics.

In Henry King's Technicolor "The Black Swan" (1942), Sanders donned a red beard and wig to play a cutthroat who defies pirate cohorts Tyrone Power and Laird Cregar. The effete Sanders was paired twice more with the dour, heavyset Cregar in "The Lodger" (1944), a psychological thriller adapted freely from the novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes, and "Hangover Square" (1945), in which Sanders' coolly efficient Scotland Yard clinician deduces that hot-tempered composer Cregar is a serial killer. As Oscar Wilde's aphorism-spouting Lord Henry Wotton, Sanders stole Albert Lewin's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1945) from star Hurd Hatfield and in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" (1947) he attempted to pry comely widow Gene Tierney from the embrace of deceased ship captain Rex Harrison. Sanders took the lead in Lewin's "The Private Affairs of Bel Ami" (1947), as a cad clawing his way through Paris society, but was third-billed yet again in Cecil B. De Mille's Technicolor epic "Samson and Delilah" (1949), as the cruel Saran of Gaza, whose Philistine temple Victor Mature pulls down out of love for God and Hedy Lamarr.

Having married for the first time in 1940, Sanders divorced in 1949 to take up with former Miss Budapest Zsa Zsa Gabor, who had emigrated from Hungary with her sisters Magda and Eva in 1941. Gabor had divorced hotel magnate Conrad Hilton 18 months earlier and was then drawing a not inconsiderable alimony of $40,000 a year while she attempted to establish herself as an actress in Hollywood. Sanders and Gabor were married on April 2, 1949, at the Little Church of the West Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, NV. Though the pair made for a handsome and often photographed couple, the union was a stormy one. A well-publicized story had Sanders suspecting Gabor of infidelity with handsome Dominican diplomat Porfino Rubirosa and hiring a private detective and a photographer to catch the pair in bed together on Christmas Eve. The couple separated at last in October 1953. Sanders filed for divorce in November, citing mental cruelty as the cause, while Gabor countersued, accusing her husband of inflicting severe mental distress and anguish. The divorce was finalized on April Fool's Day 1954, at which time Sanders quipped "I have been cast aside like a squeezed lemon."

While still married to Gabor, Sanders enjoyed his finest film role then to date, as acidic theatrical critic Addison DeWitt in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's show business exposé "All About Eve" (1950). Though the part had been intended for Jose Ferrer, the epicene DeWitt seemed bespoke for Sanders and a natural extension of characters he had played previously. In addition to stealing the film from stars Bette Davis and Anne Baxter and Marilyn Monroe (in an early role as DeWitt's bubble-headed escort), Sanders won the 1951 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Despite the career tentpole represented by "All About Eve," Sanders was reportedly depressed and withdrawn throughout production, often communicating in monosyllables if not retreating into outright silence; director Mankiewicz related in later years that he had been forced to prod a performance out of the reticent Sanders. During this time, the actor grew increasingly neurotic about his finances and paying income tax. He began to invest his savings in dodgy tax shelter opportunities while accepting more and more assignments that would bring him overseas for work and out of the jurisdiction of the Internal Revenue Service.

Sanders traveled to England to oppose knight Robert Taylor in MGM's Technicolor "Ivanhoe" (1953) and to Naples and Rome to play Ingrid Bergman's alcoholic husband in Roberto Rossellini's "Viaggio in Italia" (1954). Back in the States, he was the aristocratic villain of Fritz Lang's Gothic swashbuckler "Moonfleet" (1955), in Lang's follow-up, "While the City Sleeps" (1956), he played an opportunistic newsman who sees in the predations of a serial killer an opportunity for career advancement. After 1955, Sanders began to appear regularly on episodic television and, in 1957, he hosted "The George Sanders Mystery Theatre," which ran for 13 episodes on NBC before its cancellation. In 1958, he released a novelty album of standards on the ABE-Paramount Records label titled The George Sanders Touch: Songs for the Lovely Lady. Though he signed on for Joshua Logan's big screen adaptation of the Broadway hit "South Pacific," a fit of nerves prompted him to back out of the deal. The following year, he married actor Ronald Colman's widow, Benita Hume. In 1960, Sanders published his autobiography, titled Memoirs of a Professional Cad.

Sanders brought a disarmingly sincere performance to Wolf Rolla's "Village of the Damned" (1960), as one of several parents who learn their offspring are hyper-intelligent but malevolent alien entities. He was up to his dastardly tricks again as ladykiller Henri Landru in W. Lee Wilder's "Bluebeard's Ten Honeymoons" (1960) and played a traitorous gunrunner bedeviling virginal heroine Hayley Mills in Walt Disney's picaresque "In Search of the Castaways" (1962). Third-billed in "A Shot in the Dark" (1964), first of several sequels to Blake Edwards' 1963 caper comedy "The Pink Panther," Sanders enjoyed his bid as an aristocratic red herring and he brought trademark elegance to the role of a British Intelligence higher-up who points spy George Segal toward intrigue aplenty in Michael Anderson's espionage thriller "The Quiller Memorandum" (1966). That same year, he appeared as supervillain Mr. Freeze in two episodes of "Batman" (ABC, 1966-68), a role he later turned over to Otto Preminger, who had directed him in "Forever Amber" (1947) and "The Fan" (1949) back at Fox.

In 1967, Sanders older brother Tom Conway, who had fallen onto hard times, died of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 63. That year, Sanders provided the voice of the villainous tiger Shere Khan in Disney's "The Jungle Book." He was preparing to return to Broadway as the persnickety radio host Sheridan Whiteside in "Sherry!," a musical adaptation of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart's "The Man Who Came to Dinner" when Benita Hume was diagnosed with cancer and he was allowed by the producers to withdraw. Following Hume's death in 1969, a despondent Sanders was set up by ex-wife Zsa Zsa Gabor with her older sister, Magda, who had recently been rendered aphasic by a debilitating stroke. The marriage lasted only six weeks before being annulled. That same year, Sanders contributed the strangest performance of his career, appearing in drag as a homosexual spy in John Huston's labyrinthine espionage thriller "The Kremlin Letter" (1970). Felled himself by a stroke, which left him reliant on a cane and able to deliver dialogue only with great difficulty, Sanders grew dependent on painkillers and alcohol. His final film role was as a Satanic manservant in "Psychomania" (1971), a living dead thriller that afforded him a climactic last laugh, if not much in the way of dignity.

Having famously denigrated the craft of acting throughout much of his long and varied career, Sanders was humbled suddenly by his physical inability to earn even a basic living at it. After selling the home in Majorca, Spain that he had bought with Hume, Sanders checked into a hotel in Castelldefels, a coastal town in Barcelona, on April 23, 1972. Two days later, the 65-year-old actor was found dead of an overdose of Nembutal, having left behind two suicide notes - one to his sister and another inscribed "Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck." A decade after Sanders' suicide, friend and fellow actor Brian Aherne published the remembrance A Dreadful Man: The Story of Hollywood's Most Original Cad, George Sanders while 1990 saw the release of the definitive biography George Sanders: An Exhausted Life by Richard Vanderbeets.

By Richard Harland Smith

Filmography

 

Cast (Feature Film)

Psychomania (1973)
Endless Night (1972)
Lippincott
The Kremlin Letter (1970)
The Warlock
The Body Stealers (1970)
General Armstrong
The Candy Man (1969)
Sidney Carter [Candy Man]
The Best House in London (1969)
Sir Francis Leybourne
One Step to Hell (1969)
Captain Phillips
Warning Shot (1967)
Calvin York
Good Times (1967)
Mr. Mordicus
The Jungle Book (1967)
Shere Khan the Tiger
Trunk to Cairo (1966)
Professor Schlieben
The Quiller Memorandum (1966)
Gibbs
The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965)
The Banker
Ecco (1965)
Narrator
Dark Purpose (1964)
Raymond Fontaine
A Shot in the Dark (1964)
Benjamin Ballon
Cairo (1963)
Major Pickering
In Search of the Castaways (1962)
Thomas Ayerton
Operation Snatch (1962)
Major Hobson
Call Me Genius (1961)
Sir Charles Brouard
Five Golden Hours (1961)
Mr. Bing
Trouble in the Sky (1961)
Sir Arnold Hobbes, Queen's Counsel
Bluebeard's Ten Honeymoons (1960)
Landru
The Last Voyage (1960)
Capt. Robert Adams
Village of the Damned (1960)
Gordon Zellaby
A Touch of Larceny (1960)
Sir Charles Holland
Solomon and Sheba (1959)
Adonijah
That Kind of Woman (1959)
The Man [A. L.]
Outcasts of the City (1958)
Announcer
The Whole Truth (1958)
Carliss
From the Earth to the Moon (1958)
Stuyvesant Nicholl
The Seventh Sin (1957)
Tim Waddington
Death of a Scoundrel (1956)
Clementi Sabourin
That Certain Feeling (1956)
Larry Larkin
Never Say Goodbye (1956)
Victor
While the City Sleeps (1956)
Mark Loving
Jupiter's Darling (1955)
Fabius Maximus
The Scarlet Coat (1955)
Dr. Jonathan Odell
Moonfleet (1955)
Lord [James] Ashwood
Night Freight (1955)
Radio announcer
The King's Thief (1955)
Charles II
The Big Tip Off (1955)
Orator
Journey to Italy (1955)
Alex Joyce
King Richard and the Crusaders (1954)
King Richard the Lion-Hearted
Witness to Murder (1954)
Albert Richter
Run for the Hills (1953)
Television commentator
Call Me Madam (1953)
Gen. Cosmo Constantine
Ivanhoe (1952)
De Bois-Guilbert
Hold That Line (1952)
Football player
Kentucky Jubilee (1951)
Barker
I Can Get It for You Wholesale (1951)
J. F. Noble
The Light Touch (1951)
Felix Guignol
Samson and Delilah (1950)
The Saran of Gaza
All About Eve (1950)
Addison DeWitt
The Fan (1949)
Lord Robert Darlington
Lured (1947)
Robert Fleming
The Private Affairs of Bel Ami (1947)
Georges Duroy
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)
Miles Fairley
Forever Amber (1947)
King Charles II
The Strange Woman (1946)
John Evered
A Scandal in Paris (1946)
Eugene-François Vidocq
A Scandal in Paris (1946)
Eugene-François Vidocq
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)
Lord Henry Wotton
The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945)
Harry Melville Quincy
Hangover Square (1945)
Dr. Allan Middleton
The Lodger (1944)
Inspector John Warwick
Action in Arabia (1944)
Michael Gordon
Summer Storm (1944)
Fedja Michailovitch Petroff
They Came to Blow Up America (1943)
Carl Steelman
Paris After Dark (1943)
Dr. Andre Marbel
Appointment in Berlin (1943)
Keith Wilson
Quiet Please Murder (1943)
Jim Fleg
This Land Is Mine (1943)
George Lambert
The Moon and Sixpence (1942)
Charles Strickland
A Date with the Falcon (1942)
Gay Lawrence "The Falcon"
The Falcon's Brother (1942)
Gay Lawrence, also known as "The Falcon"
The Falcon Takes Over (1942)
Gay Lawrence, also known as "The Falcon"
Son of Fury (1942)
Sir Arthur Blake
Her Cardboard Lover (1942)
Tony Barling
The Black Swan (1942)
Captain Billy Leech
Tales of Manhattan (1942)
Williams
The Gay Falcon (1941)
Gay Lawrence, also known as "The Falcon"
Sundown (1941)
Major [A. L.] Coombes
Man Hunt (1941)
[Major] Quive-Smith
Rage in Heaven (1941)
Wardrobe Andrews
The Saint in Palm Springs (1941)
Simon Templar, also known as The Saint
So This Is London (1940)
Dr. Dereski
The House of the Seven Gables (1940)
Jaffrey Pyncheon
The Saint's Double Trouble (1940)
Simon Templar, "The Saint"/Boss Duke Bates
The Saint Takes Over (1940)
Simon Templar, the Saint
Bitter Sweet (1940)
Baron von Tranisch
Rebecca (1940)
Jack Favell
Foreign Correspondent (1940)
[Scott] ffolliott
Green Hell (1940)
Forrester
Mr. Moto's Last Warning (1939)
Eric Norvel
The Saint in London (1939)
Simon Templar, also known as "The Saint"
The Saint Strikes Back (1939)
The Saint [Simon Templar]
Nurse Edith Cavell (1939)
Capt. Heinrichs
Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939)
[Franz] Schlager
Allegheny Uprising (1939)
Capt. Swanson
International Settlement (1938)
Del Forbes
Four Men and a Prayer (1938)
Wyatt [Leigh]
Love Is News (1937)
Count Andre de Guyon
Slave Ship (1937)
Lefty
Lancer Spy (1937)
Lieutenant Michael Bruce
The Lady Escapes (1937)
Rene Blanchard
The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1937)
Indifference
Lloyd's of London (1936)
Lord Everett Stacy

Misc. Crew (Feature Film)

Insatiable (1980)
Sound

Cast (Special)

Frances Langford Presents (1959)
You're the Top (1956)
Guest

Life Events

1929

Screen debut "Strange Cargo"

Photo Collections

In Search of the Castaways - Movie Posters
In Search of the Castaways - Movie Posters
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir - Movie Posters
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir - Movie Posters
Hangover Square - Lobby Cards
Here are a few lobby cards from Fox's Hangover Square (1944), starring Laird Cregar, Linda Darnell, and George Sanders. Lobby Cards were 11" x 14" posters that came in sets of 8. As the name implies, they were most often displayed in movie theater lobbies, to advertise current or coming attractions.
While the City Sleeps - Pressbook
Here is the original campaign book (pressbook) for While the City Sleeps (1956). Pressbooks were sent to exhibitors and theater owners to aid them in publicizing the film's run in their theater.
Lured - Movie Poster
Here is an original-release insert movie poster for Lured (1947), starring Lucille Ball. Inserts measured 14x36 inches.
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Publicity Stills
Here are a few Publicity Stills from The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), starring George Sanders and Hurd Hatfield. Publicity stills were specially-posed photos, usually taken off the set, for purposes of publicity or reference for promotional artwork.
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Behind-the-Scenes Photos
Here are a few photos taken during the making of The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945).
Sundown - Scene Stills
Here are several scene stills from Walter Wanger's Sundown (1941), starring Gene Tierney, Bruce Cabot, and George Sanders.
Sundown - Lobby Cards
Here are some Lobby Cards from Walter Wanger's Sundown (1941), from the original 1941 release as well as a 1948 reissue. Lobby Cards were 11" x 14" posters that came in sets of 8. As the name implies, they were most often displayed in movie theater lobbies, to advertise current or coming attractions.
Sundown - Movie Posters
Here are a few movie posters from Walter Wanger's Sundown (1941), starring Gene Tierney and Bruce Cabot. Posters on view include a few from the original release as well as from later reissues.
Ivanhoe - Publicity Stills
Here are a few Publicity Stills from MGM's Ivanhoe (1952), starring Robert Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, and Joan Fontaine. Publicity stills were specially-posed photos, usually taken off the set, for purposes of publicity or reference for promotional artwork.
Psychomania - Movie Poster
Here is the American one-sheet movie poster for Psychomania (1971, aka The Death Wheelers), starring George Sanders and Beryl Reid. One-sheets measured 27x41 inches, and were the poster style most commonly used in theaters.
Village of the Damned - Lobby Cards
Here are a few Lobby Cards from Village of the Damned (1960). Lobby Cards were 11" x 14" posters that came in sets of 8. As the name implies, they were most often displayed in movie theater lobbies, to advertise current or coming attractions.
The Lodger - Movie Poster
Here is the American one-sheet movie poster for Fox's The Lodger (1944), starring Merle Oberon, Laird Cregar, and George Sanders. One-sheets measured 27x41 inches, and were the poster style most commonly used in theaters.
Moonfleet - Behind-the-Scenes Photos
Here are a number of photos taken behind-the-scenes during production of MGM's Moonfleet (1955), starring Stewart Granger, Viveca Lindfors, and George Sanders, and directed by Fritz Lang.
Samson and Delilah - Pressbook
Here is the campaign book (pressbook) for Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949), starring Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr. Pressbooks were sent to exhibitors and theater owners to aid them in publicizing the film's run in their theater.

Videos

Movie Clip

Shot In The Dark, A (1964) -- (Movie Clip) This Pen Has Been Fired Recently First appearance of Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau, in the first sequel to The Pink Panther, 1964, Graham Stark his aide, meeting Lafarge (Douglas Wilmer), big-shot Ballon (George Sanders), Maurice (Martin Benson) and Elke Sommer as Maria at the murder site, in Blake Edwards’ A Shot In The Dark, 1964.
All About Eve (1950) -- (Movie Clip) We Theater Folk At the party hosted by well-lit Margo (Bette Davis), her husband, director Bill (Gary Merrill) and critic Addison (George Sanders) hold court for the plucky Miss Casswell (Marilyn Monroe) and ambitious assistant Eve (Anne Baxter), et al, in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's All About Eve, 1950.
All About Eve (1950) -- (Movie Clip) Fasten Your Seat Belts Friend Karen (Celeste Holm), her playwright husband (Hugh Marlowe) and producer Max (Gregory Ratoff) stand back as actress-hostess Margo (Bette Davis) delivers her famous line in All About Eve, 1950, then joins critic DeWitt (George Sanders), Marilyn Monroe on his arm, and protegè Eve (Anne Baxter).
Falcon's Brother, The (1942) -- (Movie Clip) Consider Yourself Ignored After opening with a death on a cruise ship, the sort-of title character (George Sanders as Gay Lawrence) arrives with sidekick Lefty (Don Barclay) and tangles with cop Donovan (Cliff Clark), opening the fourth entry in the series, in which Sanders hands off the role to his brother Tom Conway, The Falcon’s Brother, 1942.
Falcon's Brother, The (1942) -- (Movie Clip) A Touch Of Homicide Following a murder at a New York fashion house, George Sanders as Gay Lawrence, star of the RKO sleuth series, finally meets his brother, Tom Conway as Tom Lawrence, who’s been lurking but not heard from until now and who, for all we know, may have done the latest shooting, in The Falcon’s Brother, 1942.
Falcon's Brother, The (1942) -- (Movie Clip) The Women Are Very Tall George Sanders as Gay Lawrence, star of RKO’s Falcon features, is recovering from being hit by a car, helped by his (real-life) brother Tom (Conway, who took over the series after this entry) and servant Jerry (Keye Luke),who together brush back cop Donovan (Cliff Clark), dismiss a nurse (Mary Halsey) and dodge a reporter (Jane Randolph), in The Falcon’s Brother, 1942.
Rage In Heaven (1941) -- (Movie Clip) Nobody Is Afraid Of Me First architect Ward (George Sanders) swoons over European war refugee Stella (Ingrid Bergman) on the English estate belonging to his friend and her employer, son Philip (Robert Montgomery) and mother (Lucile Watson), who confer about them, though he’s a bit weird, early in MGM’s Rage In Heaven 1941.
Rage In Heaven (1941) -- (Movie Clip) She's A Refugee Director W.S. Van Dyke II, from a script by Christopher Isherwood and Robert Thoeren, introduces his three top-billed stars, after an opening in which a patient named Andrews, whom we never saw, escaped from an asylum in wartime England, we meet Robert Montgomery, George Sanders, then Ingrid Bergman, in Rage In Heaven 1941.
Last Voyage, The (1960) -- (Movie Clip) Open, Fire In The Engine Room Opening narration, the real name of the ship rented (and partially sunk) by Andrew and Virginia Stone, who produced together, as he wrote and directed and she edited, was the Ile de France, as we meet George Sanders as the captain, Joel Marston his 3rd officer, and briefly Woody Strode and Edmond O’Brien, in The Last Voyage, 1960.
Last Voyage, The (1960) -- (Movie Clip) Get Me A Crowbar! The first encounter for the captain (George Sanders), whose priority so far has been to preserve calm despite the fire on board, with the Hendersons (Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone and Tammy Marihugh as Jill), then Woody Strode, Jack Kruschen and Richard Norris in the engine room, in independent producer Andrew L. Stone’s The Last Voyage, 1960.
Last Voyage, The (1960) -- (Movie Clip) There's No Danger Resourceful father Henderson (Robert Stack) assures his wife (Dorothy Malone) and their already rescued daughter (Tammy Marihugh) that he’ll be able to find a torch to free her from the wreckage, encountering Edmond O’Brien and Woody Strode tending to other emergencies, in director Andrew L. Stone’s luxury-liner disaster drama, The Last Voyage, 1960.
Last Voyage, The (1960) -- (Movie Clip) That's My Brave Girl! With mom (Dorothy Malone) pinned in the wreckage of their cabin after an on-board explosion, pleasure cruiser Henderson (Robert Stack) must rescue his daughter Jill (Tammy Marihugh) from certain death, while the ship’s captain (George Sanders) on the bridge attempts to organize, in the early disaster epic The Last Voyage, 1960.

Trailer

Cairo (1963) -- (Original Trailer) Master thieves set their sights on King Tut's jewels in this remake of The Asphalt Jungle set in Cairo (1963).
Foreign Correspondent - (Original Trailer) A camera with gun attachment, trick windmills and a mid-ocean plane crash are some of the predicaments facing Alfred Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent (1940).
Assignment - Paris - (Original Trailer) Dana Andrews is a foreign correspondent searching for leads in Communist Hungary in Assignment - Paris (1952).
Ghost and Mrs. Muir, The - (Original Trailer) A spirited widow (Gene Tierney) rents a haunted cottage and builds an emotional bond with the resident ghost (Rex Harrison) in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
Allegheny Uprising - (Re-issue Trailer) It's John Wayne versus the Redcoats as a rebel in Colonial America in Allegheny Uprising (1939) co-starring Claire Trevor and George Sanders.
Black Swan, The - (Original Trailer) When he's named governor of Jamaica, a former pirate sets out to clean up the Caribbean in The Black Swan, 1942, starring Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara.
Whole Truth, The - (Original Trailer) Stewart Granger is accused of murdering his mistress and it is up to wife Donna Reed to prove him innocent in The Whole Truth (1958).
Quiller Memorandum, The - (Original Trailer) An international spy infiltrates a Neo-Nazi gang in The Quiller Memorandum (1966) starring George Segal and Alec Guinness.
Her Cardboard Lover - (Original Trailer) In Norma Shearer's final movie, she plays a flirt who tries to make her fiance jealous by hiring a gigolo in George Cukor's Her Cardboard Lover (1942).
King's Thief, The - (Original Trailer) David Niven takes a rare villainous role in the swashbuckling adventure The King's Thief (1955) co-starring George Sanders and Roger Moore.
Rage in Heaven - (Re-issue Trailer) A jealous man plots to fake his death and incriminate his wife's suspected lover in Rage In Heaven (1941) starring Ingrid Bergman.
Action in Arabia - (Original Trailer) An adventurous reporter (George Sanders) tangles with Nazis in the desert on the eve of World War II in Action In Arabia (1944).

Family

Tom Conway
Brother
Actor.

Companions

Zsa Zsa Gabor
Wife
Actor. Second wife; married 1949, divorced 1957.
Benita Hume
Wife
Actor. Married from February 10, 1959 until her death on November 1, 1967; had previously been married to actor Ronald Colman.
Magda Gabor
Wife
Fourth wife; married 1970; sister of Zsa Zsa.

Bibliography

"Memoirs of a Professional Cad"
George Sanders (1960)