
Francis L. Sullivan
Personal Info
Known for
Acting
Gender
Male
Birthday
1903-01-06
Day of Death
1956-11-19 (53 years old)
Place of Birth
Wandsworth, London, England, UK
Francis L. Sullivan
Biography
Francis Loftus Sullivan (6 January 1903, Wandsworth, London - 19 November 1956, New York City) was an English film and stage actor. He attended Stonyhurst, the Jesuit public school in Lancashire, England whose alumni include Charles Laughton and Arthur Conan Doyle.
A heavily built man with a striking double-chin and a deep voice, Sullivan made his acting debut at the Old Vic aged 18 in Shakespeare's Richard III and appeared in his first film in 1932. Some of his notable film roles include Mr. Bumble in Oliver Twist (1948) and Phil Nosseross in the film noir Night and the City (1950). Sullivan also played the part of Jaggers in two versions of Charles Dickens's Great Expectations - in 1934 and 1946. He appeared in a fourth Dickens film, the 1935 Universal Pictures version of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, in which he played Crisparkle.
In 1938, he was featured in The Citadel, starring Robert Donat, and a decade later, he played the role of Pierre Cauchon in the technicolor version of Joan of Arc, starring Ingrid Bergman. Also in 1938 he starred in a revival of the Stokes' brothers play Oscar Wilde at London's Arts Theatre.
Sullivan also acted in light comedies, notably My Favorite Spy (1951), starring Bob Hope and Hedy Lamarr, in which he played an enemy agent, and the comedy Fiddlers Three (1944), portraying Nero. He also played the role of Pothinus in the 1945 film version of George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra. The film was directed by Gabriel Pascal, and was the last film personally supervised by Shaw himself. Sullivan later reprised the role in a stage revival of the play.
Sullivan, who eventually became a naturalized US citizen, won a Tony Award in 1955 for the Agatha Christie play Witness for the Prosecution. Earlier, he had played Hercule Poirot at the Embassy Theatre (London) in the Christie play, Black Coffee (1930). He died of a heart attack, aged 53 (some sources claim he died from an unspecified "lung ailment").
Description above from the Wikipedia article Francis L. Sullivan, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For
Acting
(1996)
Ingrid Bergman Remembered
as Self (archive footage)
(1955)
Hell's Island
as Barzland
(1955)
The Prodigal
as Bosra
(1954)
Drums of Tahiti
as Commissioner Pierre Duvois
(1953)
Plunder of the Sun
as Thomas Berrien
(1953)
Sangaree
as Dr. Bristol
(1952)
Caribbean
as Andrew McAllister
(1952)
Pontius Pilate
as Herod Antipas
(1951)
Behave Yourself!
as Fat Freddy
(1951)
My Favorite Spy
as Karl Brubaker
(1950)
Night and the City
as Philip Nosseross
(1949)
Christopher Columbus
as Francisco de Bobadilla
(1949)
The Red Danube
as Colonel Humphrey 'Blinker' Omicron
(1948)
Oliver Twist
as Mr. Bumble
(1948)
Joan of Arc
as Pierre Cauchon, Count-Bishop of Beauvais
(1948)
The Winslow Boy
as Attorney General
(1948)
Broken Journey
as Anton Perami
(1947)
The Man Within
as Mr. Braddock
(1947)
Take My Life
as Prosecuting Counsel
(1946)
Great Expectations
as Mr. Jaggers
(1946)
The Laughing Lady
as Sir Williams Tremayne
(1945)
Caesar and Cleopatra
as Pothinus
(1944)
Fiddlers Three
as Nero
(1943)
The Butler's Dilemma
as Leo Carrington
(1942)
The Foreman Went to France
as French Skipper
(1942)
The Day Will Dawn
as Kommandant Ulrich Wettau
(1942)
The Lady from Lisbon
as Minghetti
(1941)
'Pimpernel' Smith
as General von Graum
(1940)
21 Days Together
as Mander
(1939)
Young Man's Fancy
as Blackbeard, Vincent St George
(1939)
The Four Just Men
as Leon Poiccard
(1938)
The Drum
as Governor
(1938)
The Citadel
as Ben Chenkin
(1938)
Kate Plus Ten
as Lord Flamborough
(1938)
The Ware Case
as Attorney General
(1938)
Climbing High
as Madman
(1937)
Action for Slander
as Sir Quinton Jessops (as Francis Sullavan)
(1937)
Dinner at the Ritz
as Brogard
(1937)
Non-Stop New York
as Hugo Brant
(1937)
Fine Feathers
as Hugo Steinway
(1936)
A Woman Alone
as Prosecutor
(1936)
Spy of Napoleon
as Chief of Police
(1935)
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
as Rev. Mr. Septimus Crisparkle
(1935)
Her Last Affaire
as Sir Julian Weyre
(1934)
Great Expectations
as Jaggers
(1934)
Chu Chin Chow
as The Caliph
(1934)
The Return of Bulldog Drummond
as Carl Peterson
(1934)
What Happened Then?
as Richard Bentley, Prosecution Counsel
(1934)
Strange Wives
as Bellamy
(1934)
The Fire Raisers
as Stedding
(1934)
Cheating Cheaters
as Dr. George Brockton
(1934)
The Warren Case
as Prosecuting Counsel (uncredited)
(1933)
The Wandering Jew
as Juan de Texada (Phase IV)
(1933)
Called Back
as Kaledin
(1933)
Red Wagon
as Cranley
(1933)
F.P.1
as A Sailor
(1933)
The Right to Live
as Roger Stoneham
(1932)
When London Sleeps
as Rodney Haines
(1932)
The Missing Rembrandt
as Baron von Guntermann
(1932)
The Chinese Puzzle
as Herman Strumm