Torin Thatcher

Actor

About

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Birth Place

India

Born

January 15, 1905

Died

March 04, 1981

Biography

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Severe and beefy, with a name that suggests a malignant Norse legend, Torin Thatcher made a career out of being the bad guy. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he had a stint as a schoolteacher. He first appeared on the West End in the 1920s and, within a decade, had the chance to play the Ghost to Laurence Olivier's Hamlet and Vivien Leigh's Ophelia. By that point, he'...

Filmography

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Brenda Starr (1976)

The King's Pirate (1967)

The Sandpiper (1965)

Drums of Africa (1963)

Jack Cuortemayn

Jack the Giant Killer (1962)

Photos & Videos

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Sandpiper, The (1965) -- (Movie Clip) It's Either That Or Reform School

Sabotage (1936) -- (Movie Clip) If The Arsenal Lose

Biography

Severe and beefy, with a name that suggests a malignant Norse legend, Torin Thatcher made a career out of being the bad guy. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he had a stint as a schoolteacher. He first appeared on the West End in the 1920s and, within a decade, had the chance to play the Ghost to Laurence Olivier's Hamlet and Vivien Leigh's Ophelia. By that point, he'd already had his fair share of work in the British film industry; he even had an uncredited bit in "Sabotage," one of Alfred Hitchcock's pre-Hollywood thrillers. World War II interrupted Thatcher's career--he rose to the rank of major in the Royal Artillery--but he then found his way into such postwar classics as Carol Reed's "The Fallen Idol" and David Lean's "Great Expectations." Eventually, he was exported to Hollywood, which dressed him in period clothes and sent him out to sea in such swashbucklers as "The Crimson Pirate," "Blackbeard, the Pirate," and the infamous Marlon Brando remake of "Mutiny on the Bounty." Thatcher went even further back in history: as a Roman senator at the time of Christ in "The Robe," Ulysses in the Homeric "Helen of Troy," and an evil sorcerer in Ray Harryhausen's quirky classic "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad." In his later years, Thatcher's villainy was relegated mainly to TV, but the thespian always made time for the theater; he played opposite Anne Bancroft in the first production of "The Miracle Worker."

Filmography

Cast (Feature Film)

Brenda Starr (1976)

The King's Pirate (1967)

The Sandpiper (1965)

Drums of Africa (1963)

Jack Cuortemayn

Jack the Giant Killer (1962)

Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)

The Canadians (1961)

Master Sergeant McGregor

The Miracle (1959)

Duke of Wellington

Darby's Rangers (1958)

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)

Sokurah the Magician

The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958)

Band of Angels (1957)

Istanbul (1957)

Douglas Fielding

Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

[Louie] Count de Brézé

Helen of Troy (1956)

Lady Godiva of Coventry (1955)

Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955)

Mr. Palmer-Jones

The Black Shield of Falworth (1954)

Bengal Brigade (1954)

Knock on Wood (1954)

Godfrey Langston

The Desert Rats (1953)

Col. Barney White

The Robe (1953)

The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952)

The Crimson Pirate (1952)

Blackbeard, the Pirate (1952)

Sir Henry Morgan

Affair in Trinidad (1952)

Inspector Smythe

The Black Rose (1950)

When The Bough Breaks (1947)

Great Expectations (1946)

Major Barbara (1941)

Contraband (1940)

U-Boat 29 (1939)

Submarine officer

Old Mother Riley M.P. (1939)

Climbing High (1938)

The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1937)

Cast (Special)

The Holy Terror (1965)

The Count of Monte Cristo (1958)

Life Events

Videos

Sandpiper, The (1965) -- (Movie Clip) It's Either That Or Reform School After the opening in which lightly-parented Big Sur resident Danny (Morgan Mason) shot a deer, he and his artist mother Laura (Elizabeth Taylor) are called before a local judge (Torin Thatcher), Vincente Minnelli directing, early in the Taylor and Richard Burton vehicle The Sandpiper, 1965.

Sabotage (1936) -- (Movie Clip) If The Arsenal Lose We know grocer Ted (John Loder) is a policeman, Sylvia Sidney at the ticket box doesn't know the guys (William Dewhurst, Peter Bull, then Torin Thatcher) visiting her husband (Oscar Homolka) are terrorists, her young brother (Desmond Tester) also an innocent, in Hitchcock's Sabotage, 1936.

Affair In Trinidad (1952) -- (Movie Clip) Trinidad Lady No fooling around, brief bit with Steven Geray greeting Torin Thatcher and Howard Wendell but really producer-director Vincent Sherman is delivering the first appearance of Rita Hayworth, as night club performer Chris Emery, with a new song by Bob Russell and Lester Lee, in her first movie after the failure of her marriage to prince Aly Khan, in Columbia’s Affair In Trinidad, 1952, Rita’s vocal by Jo Ann Greer, choreography by Valerie Bettis and dress by Jean Louis.

Affair In Trinidad (1952) -- (Movie Clip) I Asked Him To Pass The Salt Right after her hot opening number, Howard Wendell as the new American consul in Trinidad, with Torin Thatcher as the Brit cop Smythe, with some tactics applied, tells dancer Chris Emery (Rita Hayworth) her husband has been found dead, in Rita’s box-office hit comeback, Affair In Trinidad, 1952, directed by Vincent Sherman, co-starring Glenn Ford.

Diane (1956) -- (Movie Clip) You Have Sometimes Grieved In16th century France after a prologue establishing the historical and romantic stature of the title character, she (Lana Turner) is introduced with her husband the count (Torin Thatcher), David Miller directing for MGM, from a screenplay by Christopher Isherwood, based on historian John Erskine’s story, in Diane, 1956.

Band Of Angels (1957) -- (Movie Clip) I've Got A Past Ex-slave trader Bond (Clark Gable) dispatches Canavan (Torin Thatcher) from his New Orleans home when a storm blows up, then confesses his past to recently-purchased mixed-race slave Amantha (Yvonne De Carlo), who only recently learned of her own background, in Band Of Angels, 1957.

Great Expectations (1946) -- (Movie Clip) Do You Deceive And Entrap? Estella (Valerie Hobson) dances with Bentley Drummie (Torin Thatcher) then with "Pip" (John Mills), with whom she is cruelly candid in David Lean's Great Expectations, 1946.

Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing (1955) -- (Movie Clip) Spellbound By My Own Country Discouraged at work, Anglo-Chinese doctor Han Suyin (Jennifer Jones) is escorted to a Hong Kong party by colleague Dr. Keith (Murray Matheson) where hostess Adeline (Isobel Elsom) seems benevolent if imperialistic, meeting her husband (Torin Thatcher) and journalist Elliott (leading man William Holden), early in Love Is A Many Splendored Thing, 1955.

Mutiny On The Bounty (1962) -- (Movie Clip) Lieutenant Christian Still in director Lewis Milestone's opening sequence, designated December 23, 1787, Plymouth Harbor, the first meeting of Captain Bligh (Trevor Howard) and his newly-assigned aide Fletcher Christian (Marlon Brando), in the large 1962 remake, Mutiny On The Bounty.

7th Voyage of Sinbad, The (1958) -- (Movie Clip) Open, Land It Is! Terrific opening art and Bernard Hermann music roaring, as the sailors marvel at the courage and skill of their captain (Kerwin Matthews) in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, 1958.

7th Voyage of Sinbad, The (1958) -- (Movie Clip) Follow! Kill! Hard to say who's winning here, Cyclops, Dragon, special effects guru Ray Harryhausen or composer Bernard Hermann, as Kerwin Matthews and Kathryn Grant flee in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, 1958.

7th Voyage of Sinbad, The (1958) -- (Movie Clip) I Bid You Genie... Trouble with a big two-headed Roc (by Ray Harryhausen) just as tiny Parisa (Kathryn Grant) tells Sinbad (Kerwin Matthews) the incantation, and Sokurah (Torin Thatcher) moves in, from The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, 1958.

Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing - (Original Trailer) Eurasian doctor Jennifer Jones meets war correspondent William Holden and discovers Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing (1955).

Bibliography

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