Ray Milland became one of Paramount's most bankable and durable stars,
under contract from 1934 to 1948, yet little in his early life
suggested a career as a motion picture actor.Milland was born Alfred Reginald Jones in the Welsh town of
Neath, Glamorgan, to Elizabeth Annie (Truscott) and Alfred Jones. He spent his youth in the pursuit of sports. He became an expert rider early on, working at his uncle's
horse-breeding estate while studying at the King's College in Cardiff.
At 21, he went to London as a member of the elite Household Cavalry
(Guard for the Royal Family), undergoing a rigorous 19-months training,
further honing his equestrian skills, as well as becoming adept at
fencing, boxing and shooting. He won trophies, including the Bisley
Match, with his unit's crack rifle team. However, after four years, he
suddenly lost his means of financial support (independent income being
a requirement as a Guardsman) when his stepfather discontinued his
allowance. Broke, he tried his hand at acting in small parts on the
London stage.There are several stories as to how he derived his stage name. It is
known, that during his teens he called himself "Mullane", using his
stepfather's surname. He may later have suffused "Mullane" with
"mill-lands", an area near his hometown. When he first appeared on
screen in British films, he was billed first as Spike Milland, then
Raymond Milland.In 1929, Ray befriended the popular actress
Estelle Brody at a party and, later that
year, visited her on the set of her latest film,
The Plaything (1929). While having
lunch, they were joined by a producer who persuaded the handsome
Welshman to appear in a motion picture bit part. Ray rose to the
challenge and bigger roles followed, including the male lead in
The Lady from the Sea (1929).
The following year, he was signed by MGM and went to Hollywood, but was
given little to work with, except for the role of
Charles Laughton's ill-fated nephew... in
Payment Deferred (1932). After a
year, Ray was out of his contract and returned to England.His big break did not come until 1934 when he joined Paramount, where
he was to remain for the better part of his Hollywood career. During
the first few years, he served an apprenticeship playing second leads,
usually as the debonair man-about-town, in light romantic comedies. He
appeared with Burns and Allen in
Many Happy Returns (1934),
enjoyed third-billing as a British aristocrat in the
Claudette Colbert farce
The Gilded Lily (1935) and was
described as "excellent" by reviewers for his role in the sentimental
drama Alias Mary Dow (1935). By
1936, he had graduated to starring roles, first as the injured British
hunter rescued on a tropical island by
Księżniczka dżungli (1936),
the film which launched Dorothy Lamour's
sarong-clad career. After that, he was the titular hero of
Bulldog Drummond Escapes (1937)
and, finally, won the girl (rather than being the "other man") in
Mitchell Leisen's screwball comedy
Anonimowy kochanek (1937). He
also re-visited the tropics in
Ebb Tide (1937),
Kobieta Tarzan (1938) and
Tropic Holiday (1938),
as well as being one of the three valiant brothers of
Braterstwo krwi (1939).In 1940, Ray was sent back to England to star in the screen adaptation
of Terence Rattigan's
French Without Tears (1940),
for which he received his best critical reviews to date. He was
top-billed (above John Wayne) running
a ship salvage operation in
Cecil B. DeMille's lavish Technicolor
adventure drama
Zdradzieckie skały (1942),
besting Wayne in a fight - much to the "Duke's" personal chagrin - and
later wrestling with a giant octopus. Also that year, he was directed
by Billy Wilder in a charming comedy,
Major i mała (1942)
(co-starred with Ginger Rogers), for which
he garnered good notices from
Bosley Crowther of the New York Times.
Ray then played a ghost hunter in
The Uninvited (1944), and the suave
hero caught in a web of espionage in
Fritz Lang's thriller
Ministerstwo strachu (1944).On the strength of his previous role as "Major Kirby",
Billy Wilder chose to cast Ray against type
in the ground-breaking drama
Stracony weekend (1945) as
dipsomaniac writer "Don Birnam". Ray gave the defining performance of
his career, his intensity catching critics, used to him as a
lightweight leading man, by surprise. Crowther commented "Mr. Milland,
in a splendid performance, catches all the ugly nature of a 'drunk',
yet reveals the inner torment and degradation of a respectable man who
knows his weakness and his shame" (New York Times, December 3, 1945).
Arrived at the high point of his career, Ray Milland won the Oscar for
Best Actor, as well as the New York Critic's Award. Rarely given such
good material again, he nonetheless featured memorably in many more
splendid films, often exploiting the newly discovered "darker side" of
his personality: as the reporter framed for murder by
Charles Laughton's heinous publishing
magnate in Wielki zegar (1948); as
the sophisticated, manipulating art thief "Mark Bellis" in the
Victorian melodrama
Miłość taka zła (1948) (for which
producer Hal B. Wallis sent him back to
England); as a Fedora-wearing, Armani-suited "Lucifer", trawling for
the soul of an honest District Attorney in
Tajemniczy Nick Beal (1949); and as a
traitorous scientist in
Złodziej (1952), giving what critics
described as a "sensitive" and "towering" performance. In 1954, Ray
played calculating ex-tennis champ "Tony Wendice", who blackmails a
former Cambridge chump into murdering his wife, in
Alfred Hitchcock's
M jak morderstwo (1954). He
played the part with urbane sophistication and cold detachment
throughout, even in the scene of denouement, calmly offering a drink to
the arresting officers.With Lisbon (1956), Ray Milland
moved into another direction, turning out several off-beat, low-budget
films with himself as the lead, notably
High Flight (1957),
Kasiarz (1958) and
Panic in Year Zero! (1962).
At the same time, he cheerfully made the transition to character parts,
often in horror and sci-fi outings. In accordance with his own dictum
of appearing in anything that had "any originality", he worked on two
notable pictures with Roger Corman: first,
as a man obsessed with catalepsy in
Przedwczesny pogrzeb (1962);
secondly, as obsessed self-destructive surgeon "Dr. Xavier" in
X - człowiek, który widział więcej (1963)-the Man with X-Ray Eyes, a film which,
despite its low budget, won the 1963 Golden Asteroid in the Trieste
Festival for Science Fiction.As the years went on, Ray gradually disposed of his long-standing
toupee, lending dignity through his presence to many run-of-the-mill
television films, such as
Cave In! (1983) and maudlin
melodramas like Love Story (1970). He
guest-starred in many anthology series on television and had notable
roles in Rod Serling's
Night Gallery (1969) and the
original
Battlestar Galactica (1978)
(as Quorum member Sire Uri). He also enjoyed a brief run on Broadway,
starring as "Simon Crawford" in "Hostile Witness" (1966), at the Music
Box Theatre.In his private life, Ray was an enthusiastic yachtsman, who loved
fishing and collecting information by reading the Encyclopedia
Brittanica. In later years, he became very popular with interviewers
because of his candid spontaneity and humour. In the same
self-deprecating vein he wrote an anecdotal biography, "Wide-Eyed in
Babylon", in 1976. A film star, as well as an outstanding actor, Ray
Milland died of cancer at the age of 79 in March 1986.show more
