Born Today October 1: Stanley Holloway

1890-1982

Born Stanley Augustus Holloway (OBE) in Manor Park, London, he enjoyed a very long and extremely varied career, which started out on the stage as both an actor and a song and dance man.  Though he is extremely well known for much later film work, one of his most famous was the 1964 hit My Fair Lady, he only has two film credits from the 1920's, oddly, they are pretty far apart, one in 1921 and the other in 1929 in a very early talkie.  I suppose as a stage man, the "antic acting" required in silent cinema just wasn't his thing.  When fully talking cinema come along, he never looked back.  Starting in the 1960's he also did quite a lot of television work.  Since this is the first day of The Countdown To Halloween, it's worth mentioning that managed to get himself parts simply credited as "gravedigger" in at least two films, one in the the great Laurence Olivier's Hamlet in 1944 and one much later on in The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes (1970), he stared in at least one horror film, a musical version, if you can believe it, of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1973).  He was also the father of actor Julian Holloway, who has a varied a career as his father did; and the grandfather of actress Sophie Dahl (daughter of Julian).  He passed away on the 30 January 1982 in Littlehampton, England, U.K. Visit his IMDb page here.

As "Andre" in the 1920 musical comedy A Night Out.