Sidney Bracey
Sidney Bracey | |
---|---|
Born |
Melbourne, Victoria | 18 December 1877
Died |
5 August 1942 64) Hollywood, California, USA | (aged
Occupation | Actor |
Years active | 1909–1942 |
Sidney Bracey (18 December 1877 – 5 August 1942) was an Australian-born American actor. After a stage career in Australia, on Broadway and in Britain, he appeared in 321 films between 1909 and 1942.
Life and career
Bracey was born in Melbourne, Victoria, with the name Sidney Bracy, later changing the spelling of his last name. He was the son of Welsh tenor Henry Bracy and English actress Clara T. Bracy. His aunt was actress and dancer Lydia Thompson.
He began his stage career in Australia in the 1890s, with J. C. Williamson's comic opera companies. On Broadway, in 1900, he appeared as the tenor lead, Yussuf, in the first American production of The Rose of Persia at Daly's Theatre in New York. He then moved to England, appearing as Moreno in the Edwardian musical comedy hit The Toreador at the Gaiety Theatre, London in June 1901. He next joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company on tour in Britain, playing Terence O'Brian in The Emerald Isle from September 1901 to May 1902. He cintinued his stage career in Britain in Amorelle at London's Comedy Theatre in 1904, The Winter's Tale in 1904–05, and A Persian Princess at Queen's Theatre in 1909.[1]
Back on Broadway, in 1912, he played Sir Guy of Gisborne in a revival of Reginald de Koven's Robin Hood at the New Amsterdam Theatre,[2] followed by Rob Roy at the Liberty Theatre in 1913. He then moved into film acting, making first silent films and then "talkies", until his death in 1942. Early in his film career, he wrote and directed a silent movie called Sid Nee's Finish, Thanhouser Company (1914), in which he played the title character. In 1916, he changed the spelling of his last name to "Bracey". Silent film authority Diane MacIntyre gave this description of him: "Bracey, a stately looking character man, was in big demand for authority like roles; such as movie directors, bosses and, most of the time, the most respectable and poised butler in all of Hollywood. He was thin, dark haired and had an earnest, yet sober, face that could break into a look of wide-eyed exasperation."[1]
Death
Bracy died in Hollywood, California on 5 August 1942, aged 64.
Filmography
- Adrift in a Great City (1914 short)
- Caprice of the Mountains (1916)
- A Man's World (1918)
- The Invisible Ray (1920 serial)
- An Amateur Devil (1920)
- Food for Scandal (1920)
- The Outside Woman (1921)
- The March Hare (1921)
- Crazy to Marry (1921)
- Morals (1921)
- Midnight (1922)
- The Dictator (1922)
- The Radio King (1922)
- One Wonderful Night (1922)
- The Social Buccaneer (1923)
- Ruggles of Red Gap (1923)
- The Courtship of Miles Standish (1923)
- The Wild Party (1923)
- Why Men Leave Home (1924)
- Her Night of Romance (1924)
- A Slave of Fashion (1925)
- The Merry Widow (1925)
- Wandering Footsteps (1925)
- The Blackbird (1926)
- A Man Four-Square (1926)
- A Bankrupt Honeymoon (1926)
- Paris (1926)
- The Mystery Club (1926)
- The Woman on Trial (1927)
- The Cossacks (1928)
- Home, James (1928)
- Man-Made Women (1928)
- Win That Girl (1928)
- The Haunted House (1928)
- Show People (1928)
- His Captive Woman (1929)
- Sioux Blood (1929)
- Children of Pleasure (1930)
- Outside the Law (1930)
- The Lion and the Lamb (1931)
- Shanghaied Love (1931)
- New Adventures of Get Rich Quick Wallingford (1931)
- The Monster Walks (1932)
- The Intruder (1933)
- What! No Beer? (1933)
- Broken Dreams (1933)
- The Ninth Guest (1934)
- I've Been Around (1935)
- Anna Karenina (1935) as Vronsky's Valet
- Second Childhood (1936)
- Isle of Fury (1936) as Sam
- Three Smart Boys (1937)
- Merrily We Live (1938)
- My Bill (1938)
- The Sun Never Sets (1939)
- Devil's Island (1939)
- On Trial (1939)
- King of the Underworld (1939) as Bert, the Farmer (uncredited)
- Affectionately Yours (1941)
- The Body Disappears (1941)
References
- 1 2 Stone, David. "Sidney Bracy", Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, 30 August 2002, accessed 21 February 2010
- ↑ Sidney Bracy at the IDBD database
External links
- Sidney Bracey on IMDb
- Sidney Bracey at AllMovie
- Sidney Bracey at the Internet Broadway Database
- Portrait, c. 1920, from Thanhouser Company Film Preservation