Sebastian Cabot was an English and American stage and televisin actor. He never had a lead role in a feature film but generally received good notices for his work as a character actor.
Background
Charles Sebastian Thomas Cabot was born on July 6, 1918 in London, England, United Kingdom; the son of Oscar Charles Cabot and Sophie Augustine Nubertine Brimbois. Both his parents were Belgian, his mother a refugee from World War I and his father a banker who was ruined during the Great Depression.
Education
His father's financial failure forced Cabot to leave school at the age of fourteen to work as a garage helper. Cabot subsequently held a series of odd jobs, including that of a cook, an occupation to which he later attributed his famous rotund figure.
Career
"Sabby, " as his friends called him, also worked as a chauffeur for the British actor Frank Pentingell. While working for Pentingell, with neither training nor experience, Cabot successfully launched his professional acting career by talking a series of repertory theaters into hiring him on the basis of a fake resume of respectable credits. The managers of the various theaters that hired Cabot eventually discovered his chicanery, but before they did, he managed to obtain valuable acting experience. By the mid-1930's he was landing bit parts in feature films. In the late 1930's, Cabot performed as a wrestler under the moniker of "Pierre Savage. " His wrestling career only lasted about three years, however, because of a hernia he suffered while performing. Cabot worked as a "voice" actor for the British Broadcasting Corporation in the early 1940's, appearing on more than five hundred radio programs, according to his own estimate. One of the best-known programs was "Dick Barton Strikes Back, " in which he played several roles as heavies. Cabot also did love scenes on radio, a feat that his physical appearance kept him from duplicating in films and on television. His radio career was briefly interrupted toward the end of World War II when he went abroad to entertain Allied troops. In 1945, Cabot made his London stage debut in A Bell for Adano. During his early stage career he was dubbed "The Great Faffler" by actor Charles Laughton, a reference to Cabot's tendency to employ stalling gestures, such as scratching his behind, while he struggled to remember his lines. In 1947, Cabot came to the United States and appeared in John Gielgud's production of Love for Love on Broadway. A role in 1950 as a drunk had him growing a beard, which he continued to wear from then on and for which he became as well known as for his corpulence. Cabot also appeared in more than fifty movies, including Romeo and Juliet (1954), Kismet (1955), and The Time Machine (1960). Cabot often played the villain, as he did in Othello (1946) as Iago.
By the middle of the 1950's, Cabot was appearing frequently on television. His first major role was in the 1956 British series "The Three Musketeers, " in which he played the character Porthos. From 1960 to 1962 he appeared in "Checkmate, " a series about a San Francisco detective firm dedicated to preventing crime before it happened. Cabot played the firm's criminologist, Carl Hyatt, an urbane Bostonian, and it was in this series that Cabot began to develop a persona as a cultured gentleman. He is best remembered for his role as Giles French, the genteel butler and male nanny on the CBS series "Family Affair, " which aired from 1966 until 1971. Although critics generally praised the show, commending Cabot's performance in particular, on several occasions Cabot expressed ambivalence about the character he played. After the series was canceled, he announced that he was looking forward to playing the heavy again. During the 1972-1973 television season Cabot appeared as a host for NBC's "Ghost Story, " a series of stories about the occult, psychic phenomena, and mystery. Cabot played the role of Winston Essex, the owner of an apartment hotel that was featured as the show's locale. The show, which aired for less than a year, was the last series in which Cabot regularly appeared. Cabot's career in television extended to doing commercials for such products as wine and refrigerators; he also appeared as a regular panelist on the quiz show "Stump the Stars" during the summers of 1964 and 1965. Toward the end of his life, Cabot appeared in several television movies, including The Spy Killer and Miracle on 34th Street. In the late 1960's and early 1970's, Cabot did several tours with USO shows in Southeast Asia, entertaining the troops. Cabot embodied a curious combination of the popular and the elite. Although the genteel persona that Cabot developed on "Checkmate" and "Family Affair" might suggest otherwise, he was far from being a highbrow snob. Cabot welcomed television roles, much preferring them to the stage, which he abandoned completely after he began acquiring regular television work; he claimed that doing the same performance every night was a bore. He also spent much of the spring and fall months of his later years touring college campuses and literary societies where he read his favorite poems, scenes from plays, and passages from books.
Although Cabot moved his family to the United States in 1955, he never became an American citizen, explaining that he never felt the need to because, in his view, the English and Americans were so much alike. His primary residence in the United States was in Los Angeles. He also kept a summer home on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, where he died of a stroke.
Achievements
Personality
His weight fluctuated throughout his adult life, but generally remained between 260 and 300 pounds, a considerable bulk for his five foot, nine inch frame.
Connections
Cabot married in 1940. He and his wife Kathleen had three children.