(Actor Hume Cronyn reminisces about his fifty-year marriag...)
Actor Hume Cronyn reminisces about his fifty-year marriage to Jessica Tandy and about his encounters with such stage and screen greats as Elia Kazan, Alfred Hitchcock, and John Gielgud.
(Robin Williams plays John Irving's quirky everyman, a wis...)
Robin Williams plays John Irving's quirky everyman, a wistful writer wrestling with our screwloose modern age. Award-winning performances by Glen Close and John Lithgow.
Hume Cronyn was a Canadian-born American actor, writer and film director. He was one of the foremost character actors of the American stage and screen for more than 60 years.
Background
Hume Cronyn was born on July 18, 1911, in London, Canada. He was the son of Hume Blake and Frances Amelia (Labatt) Cronyn. In 1932, Hume came to the United States.
The elder Cronyn was a grandson of both Benjamin Cronyn, first bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Huron, and politician William Hume Blake, first Chancellor of Upper Canada. Cronyn's mother was the heiress of the Labatt Brewing Company. Labatt remains the largest brewing company in Canada. Frances' father was businessman John Labatt, and her grandfather was company founder John Kinder Labatt. The Labatts was a prominent Irish-Canadian family, claiming descent from a French Huguenot family that settled in Ireland.
Education
From 1917 to 1921, Cronyn studied at Rockliffe Preparatory School (now Elmwood School) in Ottawa. In 1930, he graduated from Ridley College in St. Catharines. In 1931, Cronyn enrolled in law school at McGill University in Montreal but left before the end of the first year to act in a stock company.
Lack of money compelled him to return to school, but with his mother’s support, he was able to enroll at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City in 1932, where he studied under theatrical director Max Reinhardt. He graduated in 1934.
In 1974, Cronyn also received a Doctor of Laws from the University of Western Ontario and a Doctor of Humane Letters from Fordham University in 1985.
Earning a diploma, Cronyn got a small part in the stage flop Hipper's Holiday (1934). His early-stage work was in the touring comedies of George Abbott and included roles in Three Men on a Horse (1935-36) and Boy Meets Girl (1936). After several years of theater work on the East Coast, he won his first movie role, in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943). In the meantime, Cronyn acted in such films as Lifeboat (1944), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), and People Will Talk (1951), as well as directing plays such as Tennessee Williams's Portrait of a Madonna (1946) and Now I Lay Me down to Sleep (1950), as well as Madam. Will You Walk? (1953).
Hume was also busy during the 1940s and 1950s writing articles, short stories, and novel adaptations of Hitchcock's screenplays Rope (1948) and Under Capricorn (1949). Cronyn and Tandy next found success with the radio program The Marriage, which later saw a brief series adaptation in 1954. Subsequent collaborations included their celebrated play The Gin Game (1977), which toured the United States from 1978 to 1979, and the movies Foxfire (1987) and Cocoon (1985).
Cronyn continued to direct plays and act in movies, television, and the theater into the 1990s. Some of his last movie credits include The Pelican Brief (1993), Marvin's Room (1996), and Angel Passing (1997), the television movies Sea People (1999) and Santa and Pete (1999), and the role of the Ghost of Christmas Past in a 1990 stage production of A Christmas Carol. He was also the author of Bake My Brain (1993), Birdhouse Contributions (1993), and his 1991 autobiography A Terrible Liar: A Memoir (1991).
Cronyn was an award-winning actor often remembered for his performances with his second wife, actress Jessica Tandy. During his lengthy career, Cronyn acted in everything from lighthearted comedies to Shakespearian dramas.
Hume was nominated for an Oscar for the 1944 film Seventh Cross with Spencer Tracy. He also earned numerous awards, including an Antoinette Perry Award and New York Drama Critics Poll Award in 1964 for playing Polonius in Hamlet, two Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards - one in 1972 for The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial and one in 1979 for The Gin Game - and Emmy Awards for Age-Old Friends (1990), Broadway Bound (1992), and To Dance with the White Dog (1994). He was also honored with a National Medal of Arts in 1990 and an Antoinette Perry Lifetime Achievement Award in 1994.
In 1979, Cronyn was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame and into Canada's Walk of Fame in 1999. On July 11, 1988, he also was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada. He also received the 125th Anniversary of the Confederation of Canada Medal in 1992 and the Canadian version of the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002
Cronyn was a member of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, Screen Actors Guild, Writers Guild American, Actors Equity Association, Society Stage Directors and Choreographers, Dramatists Guild.
Personality
Cronyn was an amateur featherweight boxer, having the skills to be nominated for Canada's 1932 Olympic Boxing team.
Physical Characteristics:
Cronyn remained a featherweight 127 pounds all his life.
Interests
Sport & Clubs
Olympic Boxing team
Connections
Cronyn was married three times. First, he married Emily Woodruff in late 1934. They divorced in 1936. Then, Cronyn married the actress Jessica Tandy in 1942. Jessica Tandy died in 1994 from ovarian cancer, and Cronyn married Susan Cooper in July 1996.
Cronyn had two children: Christopher and Tandy.
Father:
Hume Blake Cronyn
(28 August 1864 - 19 June 1933)
Hume Blake Cronyn was a Canadian politician and lawyer.
Mother:
Frances Amelia Labatt Cronyn
(29 July 1868 - 18 August 1941)
late wife:
Jessica Tandy
(7 June 1909 – 11 September 1994)
Jessie Alice Tandy was an English-American actress.
ex-wife:
Emily Woodruff
(19 February 1913 - 21 February 1994)
Wife:
Susan Mary Cooper
(born on 23 May 1935)
Susan Mary Cooper is an English author of children's books. She is best known for The Dark Is Rising, a contemporary fantasy series set in England and Wales, which incorporates British mythology, such as the Arthurian legends, and Welsh folk heroes.
Max Reinhardt was an Austrian-born theatre and film director, intendant, and theatrical producer.
References
Contemporary Authors New Revision Series
In response to the escalating need for up-to-date information on writers, Contemporary Authors New Revision Series (Volume 217) brings researchers the most recent data on the world's most popular authors.
