Edward G. Robinson
Edward Goldenberg Robinson (
December 12,
1893 –
January 26,
1973) was an
American stage and
film actor, of
Romanian origin.
Born
Emanuel Goldenberg to a
Yiddish-speaking
Jewish family in
Bucharest, he emigrated with his family to
New York in 1903. He attended
Townsend Harris High School and then
City College of New York, but an interest in acting led to him winning an
American Academy of Dramatic Arts scholarship, where he changed his name to Edward G. Robinson (the G. signifying his original last name). He began his acting career in 1913 and made his
Broadway debut in 1915. He made his film debut in a very minor and uncredited role in
1916; in
1923 he made his named debut as E. G. Robinson in
The Bright Shawl. One of many actors who saw his career flourish in the new sound film era rather than falter, he made only three films prior to 1930 but left his stage career that year and made fourteen films in 1930-32. He married the actress Gladys Lloyd in 1927 and the couple had one son, Manny Robinson (1933-1974).
A sensational performance as the gangster Rico Bandello in
Little Caesar (
1931) led to him being typecast as a 'tough' for much of his early career in works such as
Five Star Final (1931),
Smart Money (1931; his only movie with
James Cagney),
Tiger Shark (1932),
Kid Galahad (1937) with
Bette Davis and
Humphrey Bogart, and
A Slight Case of Murder (1938). In the 1940s, after a good performance in
Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (1940), he expanded into edgy psychological dramas including
Double Indemnity (1944),
The Woman in the Window (1945) and
Scarlet Street (1945); but he continued to accept gangster roles such as that of Johnny Rocco in
John Huston's classic
Key Largo (1948), the last of five films he made with
Humphrey Bogart, and the only one in which he took second billing to Bogart (although his name was listed to the right of Bogart's but a little higher in both the posters and the film itself, to equalize the billing a bit).
In the 1950s he was called to testify in front of the
House Un-American Activities Committee and wound up blacklisted, even though he reluctantly named names, until
Cecil B. DeMille finally cast him in
The Ten Commandments (1956).
Robinson built up a very significant art collection that in 1956 he sold to
Greek shipping tycoon,
Stavros Niarchos in order to raise cash needed for his divorce settlement with Gladys Lloyd, which occurred at the end of his blacklist, when he was cash-strapped. That same year he returned to Broadway in
Middle of the Night.
After DeMille brought Robinson back into movies, his most notable roles occurred in
A Hole in the Head (1959) opposite
Frank Sinatra and
The Cincinnati Kid (1965), a superb Robinson showcase with
Steve McQueen. Director
Peter Bogdanovich was offered
The Godfather in 1972 but turned it down, later remarking that he would have cast Robinson in the role later played by
Marlon Brando. Robinson indeed tried to talk his way into the part (which was how he had won the role of
Little Caesar forty years before), but
Francis Coppola decided on Brando instead, over the initial objections of the studio.
Robinson was a hugely popular box-office draw in the 1930s and '40s and was able to avoid many flops over a career of over 90 films spanning 50 years. His last scene was a suicide sequence in the science fiction cult classic
Soylent Green (1973) in which he dies in a euthanasia clinic while watching nature films on a wall-sized screen.
|
Joan Bennett and Robinson in the film noir Scarlet Street (1945) |
Robinson was never nominated for an
Academy Award, but in 1973 he was awarded an honorary Oscar in recognition that he had "achieved greatness as a player, a patron of the arts, and a dedicated citizen ... in sum, a Renaissance man". He died from
cancer at the age of 79 two months prior to the award ceremony.
Edard G. Robinson is interred in a crypt in the family mausoleum at Beth El Cemetery in Ridgewood,
Queens, New York.
* The voice of
Chief Wiggum on
The Simpsons is
Hank Azaria's imitation of Robinson.
Arms and the Woman (
1916)
The Bright Shawl (
1923)
The Hole in the Wall (
1929)
Warner Bros. Jubilee Dinner (
1930) (short subject)
Night Ride (
1930)
A Lady to Love (
1930)
Outside the Law (
1930)
East Is West (
1930)
The Widow from Chicago (
1930)
How I Play Golf by Bobby Jones No. 10: Trouble Shots (
1931) (short subject)
Little Caesar (
1931)
The Slippery Pearls (
1931) (short subject)
Smart Money (
1931)
Five Star Final (
1931)
The Hatchet Man (
1932)
Two Seconds (
1932)
Tiger Shark (
1932)
Silver Dollar (
1932)
The Little Giant (
1933)
I Loved a Woman (
1933)
Dark Hazard (
1934)
The Man with Two Faces (
1934)
The Whole Town's Talking (
1935)
Barbary Coast (
1935)
Bullets or Ballots (
1936)
Thunder in the City (
1937)
Kid Galahad (
1937)
The Last Gangster (
1937)
A Slight Case of Murder (
1938)
The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (
1938)
I Am the Law (
1938)
Verdensberomtheder i Kobenhavn (
1939) (documentary)
A Day at Santa Anita (
1939) (short subject)
Confessions of a Nazi Spy (
1939)
Blackmail (
1939)
Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (
1940)
Brother Orchid (
1940)
A Dispatch from Reuters (
1940)
The Sea Wolf (
1941)
Manpower (
1941)
Polo with the Stars (
1941) (short subject)
Unholy Partners (
1941)
Larceny, Inc. (
1942)
Tales of Manhattan (
1942)
Moscow Strikes Back (
1942) (documentary) (narrator)
Magic Bullets (
1943) (short subject) (narrator)
Destroyer (
1943)
Flesh and Fantasy (
1943)
Tampico (
1944)
Mr. Winkle Goes to War (
1944)
Double Indemnity (
1944)
The Woman in the Window (
1945)
Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (
1945)
Scarlet Street (
1945)
American Creed (
1946) (short subject)
Journey Together (
1946)
The Stranger (
1946)
The Red House (
1947)
All My Sons (
1948)
Key Largo (
1948)
Night Has a Thousand Eyes (
1948)
House of Strangers (
1949)
It's a Great Feeling (
1949) (Cameo)
Operation X (
1950)
Actors and Sin (
1952)
Vice Squad (
1953)
Big Leaguer (
1953)
The Glass Web (
1953)
Black Tuesday (
1954)
Hell on Frisco Bay (
1955)
The Violent Men (
1955)
Tight Spot (
1955)
A Bullet for Joey (
1955)
Illegal (
1955)
Nightmare (
1956)
The Ten Commandments (
1956)
The Heart of Show Business (
1957) (short subject) (narrator)
A Hole in the Head (
1959)
Seven Thieves (
1960)
Pepe (
1960) (Cameo)
My Geisha (
1962)
Two Weeks in Another Town (
1962)
A Boy Ten Feet Tall (
1963)
The Prize (
1963)
Robin and the 7 Hoods (
1964) (Cameo)
Good Neighbor Sam (
1964)
Cheyenne Autumn (
1964)
The Outrage (
1964)
The Cincinnati Kid (
1965)
All About People (
1967) (short subject) (narrator)
Grand Slam (
1967)
The Blonde from Peking (
1967)
Operation St. Peter's (
1967)
The Biggest Bundle of Them All (
1968)
Never a Dull Moment (
1968)
It's Your Move (
1969)
Mackenna's Gold (
1969)
Song of Norway (
1970)
Mooch Goes to Hollywood (
1971) (Cameo)
Neither by Day Nor by Night (
1972)
Soylent Green (
1973)
*
Classic Movies (1939 - 1969): Edward G. Robinson
