Robinson and his son in a 1962 episode of Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre.
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Robinson was born as Emanuel Goldenberg on December 12, 1893, to a Yiddish-speaking Romanian Jewish family in Bucharest, the son of Sarah (née Guttman) and Morris Goldenberg, a builder.
After one of his brothers was attacked by an anti-semitic mob, the family decided to immigrate to the United States. Robinson arrived in New York City on February 14, 1903. He grew up on the Lower East Side, had his Bar Mitzvah at First Roumanian-American Congregation.
He attended Townsend Harris High School and then the City College of New York, planning to become a criminal attorney. An interest in acting and performing in front of people led to him winning an American Academy of Dramatic Arts scholarship, after which he changed his name to Edward G. Robinson (the G. standing for his original surname).
His knowledge of many languages helped him win a multilingual part in Under Fire (1915), his Broadway debut. He continued acting each Broadway season for the next decade, and in 1927 he had his first starring role, in the play The Racket. Two years later he appeared in The Kibitzer, a three-act comedy he wrote with Jo Swerling.
Though he had appeared in two silent films—Arms and the Woman (1916) and The Bright Shawl (1923)—it was not until the advent of sound that Robinson’s movie career began in earnest. After a few undistinguished dramas, he starred as the trigger-happy gangster Enrico Bandello in Little Caesar (1931). It was the perfect part for Robinson and made him an instant star. Robinson’s dynamic performance, like that of James Cagney in The Public Enemy (1931), made the film stand apart from the usual underworld story, and both films marked the start of a long series of gangster pictures with which the Warner Brothers studio would become most associated throughout the 1930s and ’40s.
Robinson was content that his career would consist of rough-and-tumble roles and character parts; he was happy to turn what would have otherwise been physical drawbacks into instantly identifiable trademarks. He continued playing “tough mugs” in film after film: a con man in Smart Money (1931), a cigar-chomping newspaper editor in Five Star Final (1931), a convicted murderer in Two Seconds (1932), and a spoof of his own Little Caesar image in The Little Giant (1933). The Whole Town’s Talking (1935), in which he played the dual roles of a timid bank clerk and a ruthless hoodlum, showed Robinson capable of fine, understated comedy, whereas in Bullets or Ballots (1936), he at last got to play somebody on the right side of the law, an undercover policeman. In 1937 he began a five-year run on the popular radio series Big Town, playing a newspaper editor.
Robinson considered his title role in Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet (1940) to be his best performance. The story of the doctor who found the cure for syphilis, the film was further proof that Robinson could give a distinguished performance even without a gun in his hand or a cigar in his mouth. His other well-received films include A Dispatch from Reuters (1940), The Sea Wolf (1941), Double Indemnity (1944), The Woman in the Window (1944), Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (1945), All My Sons (1948), and Key Largo (1948).
In the 1950s Robinson suffered a series of personal setbacks. He testified several times for the House Committee on Un-American Activities before he was ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing, and a divorce settlement in 1956 forced him to sell off most of his private art collection, which was considered one of the finest in the world. Still, he kept working in films and returned to Broadway in Paddy Chayefsky’s Middle of the Night (1956). By the 1950s he was no longer a major star, though he continued to deliver fine performances in notable films such as The Ten Commandments (1956), A Hole in the Head (1959), and The Cincinnati Kid (1965). He enjoyed television work and guest-starred in many dramas and specials, including Ford Theatre, Playhouse 90, and Rod Serling’s Night Gallery. Robinson died in 1973 shortly after completing his final film, Soylent Green.
Edward G. Robinson went down in history as an actor of stage and screen during Hollywood's Golden Age. He appeared in 40 Broadway plays and more than 100 films during a 50-year career and is best remembered for his tough-guy roles as gangsters in such films as Little Caesar and Key Largo.
Robinson received an Honorary Academy Award for his work in the film industry, which was awarded two months after his death in 1973. He is ranked number 24 in the American Film Institute's list of the 25 greatest male stars of Classic American cinema.
In October 2000, Robinson's image was imprinted on a U.S. postage stamp, its sixth in its Legends of Hollywood series.
During the 1930s, Robinson was an outspoken public critic of fascism and Nazism, and donated more than $250,000 to 850 political and charitable groups between 1939 and 1949. He was host to the Committee of 56 who gathered at his home on December 9, 1938, signing a "Declaration of Democratic Independence" which called for a boycott of all German-made products.
Although he tried to do so, he was unable to enlist in the military at the outbreak of World War II because of his age; instead, the Office of War Information appointed him as a Special Representative based in London. From there, taking advantage of his multilingual skills, he delivered radio addresses in over six languages to countries in Europe which had fallen under Nazi domination. His talent as a radio speaker in the U.S. had previously been recognized by the American Legion, which had given him an award for his "outstanding contribution to Americanism through his stirring patriotic appeals." Robinson was also active with the Hollywood Democratic Committee, serving on its executive board in 1944, during which time he became an "enthusiastic" campaigner for Roosevelt's reelection that year.
In early July 1944, less than a month after the Invasion of Normandy by Allied forces, Robinson traveled to Normandy to entertain the troops, becoming the first movie star to go there for the USO. He personally donated $100,000 ($1,500,000 in 2015 dollars) to the USO. After returning to the U.S. he continued his active involvement with the war effort by going to shipyards and defense plants to inspire workers, in addition to appearing at rallies to help sell war bonds. After the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, while not a supporter of Communism, he appeared at Soviet war relief rallies to give moral aid to America's new ally, which he said could join "together in their hatred of Hitlerism."
After the war ended, Robinson spoke publicly in support of democratic rights for all Americans, especially in demanding equality for Blacks in the workplace. He endorsed the Fair Employment Practices Commission's call to end workplace discrimination. Black leaders praised him as "one of the great friends of the Negro and a great advocator of Democracy."
During the years Robinson spoke against fascism and Nazism, although not a supporter of Communism, he failed to criticize the Soviet Union which he saw as an ally against Hitler. However, notes film historian Steven J. Ross, "activists who attacked Hitler without simultaneously attacking Stalin were vilified by conservative critics as either Communists, Communist dupes, or, at best, naive liberal dupes." In addition, Robinson learned that 11 of the more than the 850 charities and groups he had helped over the previous decade were listed by the FBI as Communist front organizations. As a result, he was called to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1950 and 1952 and was threatened with blacklisting.
As appears in the full House of Un-American activities Committee transcript for April 30th 1952, Robinson "named names" of Communist sympathizers (Albert Maltz, Dalton Trumbo, John Howard Lawson, Frank Tuttle, and Sidney Buchman) and repudiated some of the organizations he had belonged to in the 1930s and 1940s. He came to realize, "I was duped and used." His own name was cleared, but in the aftermath his career noticeably suffered, as he was offered smaller roles and those less frequently. In October 1952 he wrote an article titled "How the Reds made a Sucker Out of Me", that was published in the American Legion Magazine. The chair of the Committee, Francis E. Walter, told Robinson at the end of his testimonies, that the Committee "never had any evidence presented to indicate that you were anything more than a very choice sucker."
In noticeable contrast to many of his onscreen characters, Robinson was a sensitive, softly-spoken and cultured man, who spoke seven languages.
Physical Characteristics:
Short, chubby, with “the face of a depraved cherub and a voice which makes everything he says seem violently profane,” as Time magazine described him in 1931.
Robinson married his first wife, stage actress Gladys Lloyd, born Gladys Lloyd Cassell, in 1927; she was the former wife of Ralph L. Vestervelt and the daughter of Clement C. Cassell, an architect, sculptor and artist. The couple had one son, Edward G. Robinson, Jr. (a.k.a. Manny Robinson, 1933–1974), as well as a daughter from Gladys Robinson's first marriage. In 1956 he was divorced from his wife. In 1958 he married Jane Bodenheimer, a dress designer professionally known as Jane Arden.
(1895–1971)
(d.1991)
(March 19, 1933 – February 26, 1974)
He was an American actor. He was the son of the famous actor Edward G. Robinson and his wife Gladys Lloyd.
(October 4, 1923 – April 5, 2008)
He was an American actor and political activist.
