Leo Genn should not be confused with Leo Penn.
| Leo Genn | |||||||||||
| Birth Name: | Leopold John Genn | ||||||||||
| Birth Date: | 1905 8, df=yes | ||||||||||
| Birth Place: | Stamford Hill, London, England | ||||||||||
| Death Place: | London, England | ||||||||||
| Alma Mater: | St Catharine's College, Cambridge | ||||||||||
| Yearsactive: | 1935–1975 | ||||||||||
| Module: |
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Leopold John Genn (; 9 August 1905 – 26 January 1978) was an English actor and barrister. Distinguished by his relaxed charm and smooth, "black velvet" voice,[1] he had a lengthy career in theatre, film, television, and radio; often playing aristocratic or gentlemanly, sophisticate roles.
Born to a Jewish family in London, Genn was educated as a lawyer and was a practising barrister until after World War II, in which he had served in the Royal Artillery as a Lieutenant-Colonel. He began his acting career at The Old Vic and made his film debut in 1935, starring in a total of 85 screen roles until his death in 1978. For his portrayal of Petronius in the 1951 Hollywood epic Quo Vadis, he received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
Genn was born at 144 Kyverdale Road, Stamford Hill, Hackney, London, the son of Jewish parents Woolfe (William) Genn and Rachel Genn (née Asserson).[2]
Genn attended the City of London School, having gained scholarships in both classics and mathematics,[3] and studied law at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he became captain of both the football and tennis teams.[3] He went on to study at the Middle Temple, qualifying as a barrister in 1928.[4] [2] He ceased practising as a lawyer after serving as an assistant prosecutor at the Belsen War Trials.[5]
Genn entered acting with the Berkley Players (attached to the West London Synagogue)[4] in order to increase his chances of finding prospective clients for his legal work.[3] Actor/manager Leon Lion saw Genn act and offered him a contract.[6] Genn's theatrical debut was in 1930 in A Marriage has been Disarranged at the Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne and then at the Royalty Theatre in Dean Street, London. Lion had engaged him simultaneously as an actor and attorney. In 1933, he appeared in Ballerina by Rodney Ackland. Between September 1934 and March 1936, Leo Genn was a member of the Old Vic Company, where he appeared in many productions of Shakespeare. In 1934 he featured in R. J. Minney's Clive of India.
In 1937, he played Horatio in Tyrone Guthrie's production of Hamlet, with Laurence Olivier as Hamlet, in Elsinore, Denmark. In 1938, Genn appeared in the theatrical hit The Flashing Stream by Charles Langbridge Morgan and went with the show to Broadway in New York City. His many other stage performances included Lillian Hellman's Another Part of the Forest, 12 Angry Men, The Devil's Advocate, and Somerset Maugham's The Sacred Flame.
In 1959, Genn gave a reading[7] in Chichester Cathedral. In 1974, a recording of The Jungle Book was released with Genn as narrator and Miklós Rózsa conducting the Frankenland Symphony Orchestra with the music from the film.
Genn's first film role was as Shylock in Immortal Gentleman (1935), a biography of Shakespeare. Douglas Fairbanks Jr hired Genn as a technical adviser on the film Accused (1936). He was subsequently given a small part in the film on the strength of a "splendid voice and presence". Genn received another small role in Alexander Korda's The Drum (1938) and was the young man who danced with Eliza Doolittle at the duchess's ball in Pygmalion, a film made in the same year, although he was uncredited.
With war approaching, Genn joined the Officers' Emergency Reserve in 1938.[6] He was commissioned in the Royal Artillery on 6 July 1940 and was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in 1943. In 1944 the actor was given official leave to appear as Charles I d'Albret, the Constable of France, in Laurence Olivier's Henry V.
Genn was awarded the Croix de Guerre in 1945.[6] He was part of the British unit that investigated war crimes at Belsen concentration camp and later was an assistant prosecutor at the Belsen war crimes trials in Lüneburg, Germany.[5]
He was in Green for Danger (1946) and The Snake Pit (1948). He was one of the two leading actors in The Wooden Horse in 1950. After his Oscar-nominated success as Petronius in Quo Vadis (1951), he appeared in John Huston's Moby Dick (1956). Genn also appeared in some American films, such as The Girls of Pleasure Island, and Plymouth Adventure (1952), a fictionalised treatment of the Pilgrims' landing at Plymouth Rock. He later starred opposite Gene Tierney in the British film Personal Affair (1953).
He played Major Michael Pemberton in Roberto Rossellini's Era Notte a Roma (Escape by Night, 1960). Leo Genn narrated the coronation programmes of both 1937 and 1953, the King George VI Memorial Programme in 1952, and the United Nations ceremonial opening (in the USA) in 1947.
Genn was a governor of the Mermaid Theatre and trustee of the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre. He was also council member of the Arts Educational Trust. He was appointed distinguished visiting professor of theatre arts, Pennsylvania State University, 1968 and visiting professor of drama, University of Utah, 1969.
On 14 May 1933, Genn married Marguerite van Praag (1908–1978), a casting director at Ealing Studios. They had no children.
Genn died in London on 26 January 1978.[8] The immediate cause of death was a heart attack, brought on by complications of pneumonia. He is buried in Etretat Churchyard, Seine-Maritime, France.
In 2023, a historical marker for Leo Genn was placed on the building in which was born by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, U.K. Branch and AJEX.
The text reads:
(Lt Col.) Leo Genn, RA, Croix de Guerre
Jewish Prosecutor - Bergen Belsen War Crimes Trials
Famous actor and soldier (1905–78) was born in this house
"When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous..." Proverbs 21:15
Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, U.K. Branchand AJEX
United Kingdom