I keep meaning to make an icon out of this photograph. I think it must have been taken when he was still a stage actor; he really didn't hit cinematic stardom until his mid-forties. And then his persona was so ironic and urbane, I'm not used to him looking rakish, but it's that comma-fall of hair. He looks like he's auditioning thirty years too early for James Bond.
I've loved him ever since I was a kid and HE was the Phantom of the Opera.
One of my father's best friends as a kid on the Upper West Side was the younger son of Susanna Foster, the soprano who played Christine to Rains' Phantom.
I discovered him—like many people, I think—with Casablanca's Captain Renault, one of my earliest identifiable favorite characters in a film. He did not disappoint after that.
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I keep meaning to make an icon out of this photograph. I think it must have been taken when he was still a stage actor; he really didn't hit cinematic stardom until his mid-forties. And then his persona was so ironic and urbane, I'm not used to him looking rakish, but it's that comma-fall of hair. He looks like he's auditioning thirty years too early for James Bond.
I've loved him ever since I was a kid and HE was the Phantom of the Opera.
One of my father's best friends as a kid on the Upper West Side was the younger son of Susanna Foster, the soprano who played Christine to Rains' Phantom.
I discovered him—like many people, I think—with Casablanca's Captain Renault, one of my earliest identifiable favorite characters in a film. He did not disappoint after that.