One of the greatest classic film actors ever. I watched "The Portrait of Dorian Gray" last night. The man is brilliant and often outshines his castmates. He is also a must see in All About Eve. He and Bette own that film.


`"No woman kills herself who isn't already mentally unstable. Where's your Sherry?"




George Sanders was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, of British parents. In 1917, at the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, when Sanders was 11, the family returned to Britain and, like his brother, he attended Brighton College, a boys’ independent school in Brighton. After graduation he worked in an advertising agency. It was there that the company secretary, an aspiring actress named Greer Garson, suggested to him a career in acting.

He made his British film debut in 1934 and, after a series of British films, made his American debut in 1936 with a role in Lloyd’s of London. His British accent and sensibilities, combined with his suave, snobbish, and somewhat menacing air, were utilised in American films during the next decade. He played supporting roles in prestige productions such as Rebecca, in which he joined forces with Judith Anderson in her persecution of Joan Fontaine. He also played leading roles in such less high-profile pictures as Rage in Heaven. During this time he was also the lead in both The Falcon and The Saint film series, and also played Lord Henry Wotton in a film version of The Picture of Dorian Gray. In 1947 he co-starred with Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.

In 1950 he gave his most widely recognised performance, and achieved his greatest success, as the acerbic, cold-blooded theatre critic Addison DeWitt in All About Eve, winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

He moved into the field of television and was responsible for the successful series George Sanders Mystery Theatre. Sanders played an upper crust English villain, G. Emory Partridge, in a 1965 The Man From U.N.C.L.E. episode, “The Gazebo in the Maze Affair”, and reprised the role later that year in “The Yukon Affair”. He also portrayed Mr. Freeze in two episodes of the 1960s live-action Batman TV series.

Later, he provided the voice for the malevolent Shere Khan in the Walt Disney production of The Jungle Book.

In 1940, he married Susan Larson; the marriage ended in divorce in 1949. From 1949 until 1954, he was married to the Hungarian actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, whose previous marriage had been to Conrad Hilton. (In 1956 Sanders and Gabor starred together in the film Death of a Scoundrel.) Sanders was then married to actress Benita Hume, widow of actor Ronald Colman, from 1959 until her death in 1967. His last wife was Magda Gabor, the older sister of his second wife; the marriage lasted only 6 weeks. Following this he began to drink heavily.

After being convinced by a woman he had taken up with, George Sanders sold his beloved house in Majorca, Spain. Soon after, he checked into a hotel in Castelldefels, a coastal town near Barcelona, Spain. His body was discovered two days later, along with five empty bottles of Nembutal. He left behind a suicide note that read:

“Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck.”

His friend David Niven recorded in his autobiography Bring On The Empty Horses that Sanders had long predicted that he would commit suicide at the age of 65.

His body was cremated and the ashes scattered in the English Channel.
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George Sanders was an amazing actor.

I loved him in so many parts, but I think my favorite was Addison DeWitt in All About Eve. He was so delightfully evil.

He was a shape-shifter - an actor who could take on just about any role and be 100% believable. You might not recognize his face in some of his roles, but you always knew his incredible voice.

Gen you and I are either the only ones who know who George is or the only ones that like him. Either possibility is sad. He was a great actor with a great resume.