George Sanders would still have style."
George Henry Sanders (3 July 1906 – 25 April 1972) was a Russian-born British actor who portrayed the archetypal dastardly cad throughout the 1940s and '50s, winning an Academy Award for his portrayal of the Caustic Critic Addison De Witt in All About Eve. He is probably most familiar to younger audiences as the voice of Shere Khan in Disney's The Jungle Book (1967). He also has the honor of playing the first live-action incarnation of Mr. Freeze in the Adam West's take on Batman (1966), and is arguably the most memorable of the three actors to take the role in the show—no small feat when your competition is Otto Preminger and Eli Wallach.
In his personal life, Sanders was an insecure, artistic man who disguised his true self through a cynically witty persona that he often performed in his films. He was married several times, most notably to Zsa Zsa Gabor. He took his own life at the age of 65, after years with dementia and a debilitating stroke.
He was the younger brother of actor Tom Conway, best-known for his appearances in Cat People (1942) and other Val Lewton movies. Their voices were extraordinarily similar. The brothers appeared in two films together, Death of a Scoundrel and The Falcon's Brother.
Sanders wrote a rare but hilariously witty book, Memoirs of a Professional Cad.
George Sanders films with pages on TV Tropes:
- Love Is News (1937) as Count Andre de Guyon
- The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1937) as Indifference
- Rebecca (1940) as Jack Favell
- Foreign Correspondent (1940) as Scott ffolliott
- Rage in Heaven (1941) as Ward Andrews
- The Black Swan (1942) as Capt. Billy Leech
- This Land Is Mine (1943) as George Lambert
- The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) as Lord Henry Wotton
- The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) as Miles Fairley
- Forever Amber (1947) as King Charles II
- Samson and Delilah (1949) as The Saran of Gaza
- All About Eve (1950) as Addison DeWitt — Academy Award Winner for Best Supporting Actor
- Ivanhoe (1952) as De Bois-Guilbert
- Journey to Italy (1954) as Alexander 'Alex' Joyce
- The Scarlet Coat (1955) as Dr. Jonathan Odell
- While the City Sleeps (1956) as Mark Loving
- Solomon and Sheba (1959) as Adonijah
- The Last Voyage (1960) as Captain Robert Adams
- Village of the Damned (1960) as Gordon Zellaby
- The Rebel (1961) as Sir Charles Brewer
- A Shot in the Dark (1964) as Benjamin Ballon
- The Jungle Book (1967) as Shere Khan
- The Best House in London (1969) as Sir Francis Leybourne
George Sanders and his works provide examples of:
- Actor Allusion: In Village of the Damned (1960), a priest mentions that one of the pregnant girls in town is named Evelyn Harrington.
- Cold Ham: One of the masters of this trope, using vocal inflections and facial expressions to dominate his scenes without ever raising his voice.
- Creator Backlash: He hated playing in The Falcon series, as it was too similar to The Saint.
- Creator's Favorite Episode: All About Eve was his favourite of all his films."The critics and the trades loved it. It was a film of distinction: witty, sophisticated, and brilliantly written and directed."
- The Comically Serious: In most of his roles in comic films.
- Deadpan Snarker: If he had something to say, chances are it was a witticism.
- Evil Brit: Beloved for his upper-class English accent, and most of his roles were as menacing cads.
- Evil Sounds Deep: His sonorous, ever-so-slightly guttural baritone voice was often as chilling as it was ravishing.
- Ink-Suit Actor: Actually, it was the other way round. He was offered the role of Shere Kahn in The Jungle Book because someone noticed how drawings of the character looked a lot like him.
- Money, Dear Boy: Supposedly the only reason he acted.
- The Other Darrin: He took over from Louis Hayward playing Simon Templar in The Saint series of B-movies.
- Playing Against Type:
- Normally slimy villains, he also played a kindly father in Village of the Damned.
- And although his character in Black Jack has a troubled past, he is trying to redeem himself.
- What Could Have Been: His role of Saran in Samson and Delilah almost went to Vincent Price, who Cecil B DeMille liked enough to then cast as Baka in The Ten Commandments (1956).
