Gregory Ratoff


Actor, Director
Gregory Ratoff

About

Birth Place
Russia
Born
April 20, 1897
Died
December 14, 1960
Cause of Death
Leukemia

Biography

Czarist emigre who worked on Broadway before being typecast as a heavily accented foreigner in Hollywood films from the early 1930s. His best-remembered performance is as the harassed theater producer Max Fabian in "All About Eve" (1950). Ratoff made his directorial debut in 1936 and turned out mostly unexceptional pictures, firstly in Hollywood and then, from the late 1940s, in England....

Family & Companions

Leonie Leontovich
Wife
Actor. Divorced; born 1900; died 1993.
Maria Kostes
Wife
Singer.

Biography

Czarist emigre who worked on Broadway before being typecast as a heavily accented foreigner in Hollywood films from the early 1930s. His best-remembered performance is as the harassed theater producer Max Fabian in "All About Eve" (1950). Ratoff made his directorial debut in 1936 and turned out mostly unexceptional pictures, firstly in Hollywood and then, from the late 1940s, in England. He is best known for "Intermezzo" (1939)--Ingrid Bergman's first English-language film--and "Oscar Wilde" (1960), starring Robert Morley.

Filmography

 

Director (Feature Film)

Oscar Wilde (1960)
Director
Abdullah the Great (1955)
Director
Taxi (1953)
Director
My Daughter Joy (1950)
Director
Black Magic (1949)
Director
That Dangerous Age (1949)
Director
Carnival in Costa Rica (1947)
Director
Moss Rose (1947)
Director
Do You Love Me (1946)
Director
Paris--Underground (1945)
Director
Where Do We Go from Here? (1945)
Director
Irish Eyes Are Smiling (1944)
Director
Song of Russia (1944)
Director
Something to Shout About (1943)
Director
The Heat's On (1943)
Director
Two Yanks in Trinidad (1942)
Director
Footlight Serenade (1942)
Director
The Men in Her Life (1941)
Director
The Corsican Brothers (1941)
Director
Adam Had Four Sons (1941)
Director
Elsa Maxwell's Public Deb No. 1 (1940)
Director
I Was an Adventuress (1940)
Director
Everything Happens at Night (1939)
Director skating sequences
Elsa Maxwell's Hotel for Women (1939)
Director
Day-Time Wife (1939)
Director
Wife, Husband and Friend (1939)
Director
Rose of Washington Square (1939)
Director
Barricade (1939)
Director
Intermezzo, a Love Story (1939)
Director
Lancer Spy (1937)
Director
Sins of Man (1936)
Director

Cast (Feature Film)

The Big Gamble (1961)
Kaltenberg
Once More, With Feeling! (1960)
Maxwell Archer
Exodus (1960)
Lakavitch
The Sun Also Rises (1957)
Count Mippipopolous
Abdullah the Great (1955)
The Moon Is Blue (1953)
Taxi driver
O. Henry's Full House (1952)
Behrman
All About Eve (1950)
Max Fabian
Something to Shout About (1943)
Restaurateur
The Great Profile (1940)
Boris Mefoosky
Sally, Irene and Mary (1938)
Baron Zorka
Gateway (1938)
Prince Michael Boris Alexis
Top of the Town (1937)
J. J. Stone
Café Metropole (1937)
Paul
Seventh Heaven (1937)
Boul
King of Burlesque (1936)
Kolpolpeck
Under Two Flags (1936)
Ivan
The Road to Glory (1936)
[Sergeant] Bouffiou
Under Your Spell (1936)
Petroff
Sing, Baby, Sing (1936)
Nicky Alexander
Here Comes Trouble (1936)
Ivan Petroff
Remember Last Night? (1935)
Faronea
This Woman Is Mine (1935)
Nikita
18 Minutes (1935)
George White's Scandals (1934)
Nicholas Mitwoch
Sweepings (1933)
[Abe] Ullman
Headline Shooter (1933)
[Hermie] Gottlieb
Professional Sweetheart (1933)
[Sam] Ipswich
Broadway Thru a Keyhole (1933)
Max Mefoofski
I'm No Angel (1933)
Benny Pinkowitz
Let's Fall in Love (1933)
Max [Hooper]
Girl Without a Room (1933)
The General [Grand Duke Sergé Alexovich]
Sitting Pretty (1933)
Tannenbaum
Once in a Lifetime (1932)
Herman Glogauer
Under-Cover Man (1932)
Martoff
Secrets of the French Police (1932)
General Hans Moloff
Skyscraper Souls (1932)
Vinmont
Symphony of Six Million (1932)
Meyer ["Lansman" Klauber]
What Price Hollywood? (1932)
Julius Saxe

Writer (Feature Film)

Café Metropole (1937)
Original Story
You Can't Have Everything (1937)
Original Story
Sins of Man (1936)
Contr to Screenplay const
This Woman Is Mine (1935)
Story
The Great Flirtation (1934)
Story

Producer (Feature Film)

Abdullah the Great (1955)
Producer
My Daughter Joy (1950)
Producer
Black Magic (1949)
Producer
That Dangerous Age (1949)
Producer
Something to Shout About (1943)
Producer
The Heat's On (1943)
Producer
The Men in Her Life (1941)
Producer
18 Minutes (1935)
Producer

Misc. Crew (Feature Film)

Ingrid (1985)
Other
Enormous Changes at the Last Minute (1983)
Other

Cast (Short)

Hollywood Handicap (1938)

Life Events

Videos

Movie Clip

All About Eve (1950) -- (Movie Clip) We Theater Folk At the party hosted by well-lit Margo (Bette Davis), her husband, director Bill (Gary Merrill) and critic Addison (George Sanders) hold court for the plucky Miss Casswell (Marilyn Monroe) and ambitious assistant Eve (Anne Baxter), et al, in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's All About Eve, 1950.
Secrets Of The French Police (1932) -- (Movie Clip) Princess Anastasia Leon (John Warburton) at a Paris cafe, French detective St. Cyr (Frank Morgan) playing the drunk, observing evil Baron Lonzoi (Lucien Prival) calling master crook General Moloff (Gregory Ratoff), in Secrets Of The French Police, 1932.
What Price Hollywood? (1932) -- (Movie Clip) Beef, Iron And Wine Lowell Sherman (actor turned director, here playing dissolute director "Max Carey") outside the Brown Derby, escorting waitress Mary (Constance Bennett) to his premiere, in George Cukor's What Price Hollywood?, 1932.
Corsican Brothers, The (1941) -- (Movie Clip) It Wasn't A Dream Introduction of second brother, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. again, as Mario, in Paris pursuing Isabella (Ruth Warrick), tangling with De Raveneau (Henry Brandon), twin Lucien in Corsica with sympathetic pain, in The Corsican Brothers, 1941.
Corsican Brothers, The (1941) -- (Movie Clip) Proud And Noble Name Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as both bandit Lucien and citified Mario, surgically separated at birth, meeting with their guardians Lorenzo (J. Carrol Naish) and Dr. Paoli (H.B. Warner) revealing their history, in The Corsican Brothers, 1941, from the Alexandre Dumas story.
Corsican Brothers, The (1941) -- (Movie Clip) They Were Born To Be One Dr. Paoli (H.B. Warner) has just separated the Siamese-twin Franchi sons and learned, with the DuPre's (Walter Kingsford, Nana Bryant), from Lorenzo (J. Carrol Naish) that their family has been slaughtered, whereby Lucien (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) is introduced, in The Corsican Brothers, 1941.
Black Magic (1949) -- (Movie Clip) His Cunning Gypsy Mind We know from narration (by Berry Kroeger as Alexandre Dumas) that gypsy Balsamo (Orson Welles) is a prodigiously gifted hypnotist, seen here just after he’s been discovered and bailed out of a Vienna jail by the professionally interested Dr. Mesmer (Charles Goldner), in Black Magic, 1949.
Skyscraper Souls -- (Movie Clip) Make Up For Lost Time Opening shot confirms that the tower in our story dwarfs the Empire State Building, gregarious Tom (Norman Foster) meets heroine Lynn (Maureen O'Sullivan) who then joins dressmaker Vinmont (Gregory Ratoff), in Skyscraper Souls, 1932.
O. Henry's Full House (1952) -- (Movie Clip) The Last Leaf From one of the best-known stories in the anthology, Jean Negulesco directing, sisters Susan (Jean Peters) and ailing Joanna (Anne Baxter) struggling to cope, the former then visiting their benevolent painter neighbor Behrman (Gregory Ratoff), in 20th Century-Fox’s O. Henry’s Full House, 1952.
Black Magic (1949) -- (Movie Clip) He Hypnotized Half The World! Producer Edward Small wringing every drop of historical gravitas from his even-then out-of-copyright literary source, Gregory Ratoff directing Berry Kroeger and Raymond Burr as Dumas père and fils, opening Black Magic, 1949, starring Orson Welles.
Black Magic (1949) -- (Movie Clip) The Words Within Your Own Soul Now renowned throughout Europe, hypnotist “Cagliostro” (Orson Welles) has just recognized his parents’ murderer (Stephen Bekassy), who needs him to revive catatonic Lorenza (Nancy Guild), in whose flashback we meet handsome Gilbert (Frank Latimore), Gregory Ratoff directing, in Black Magic, 1949.
Black Magic (1949) -- (Movie Clip) Long Live Cagliostro! Gifted gypsy Balsamo (Orson Welles) has just learned that his powers of hypnotism will have great currency in European society, his crew (Akim Tamiroff, Valentina Cortese) enthralled as Berry Kroeger in the voice of Alexandre Dumas narrates his ascendance, in Black Magic, 1949.

Trailer

Companions

Leonie Leontovich
Wife
Actor. Divorced; born 1900; died 1993.
Maria Kostes
Wife
Singer.

Bibliography