Godfrey
Tearle

Biography

Born in New York City and raised in England, Godfrey Tearle was the son of British actor/manager George Osmond Tearle and American actress Marianne Conway, brother to actor Malcolm Tearle and half-brother of silent film star Conway Tearle.

In 1893, he made his stage debut as young Prince Richard, Duke of York, in his father's production of Richard III, later appearing in his first film as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet in 1908. He became a Shakespearean actor of note, appearing on stage in the title roles of Othello, Macbeth, and Henry V. His life on the stage was interrupted however when he joined the Royal Artillery for a four-year stint beginning in 1915.

Appearing as the character of Professor Jordan in Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (1935), the role would become his most remembered on screen appearance. He was later cast as an RAF gunner in One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942), a German General in Undercover (1943), an aging World War I veteran in Medal for the General (1944), and as Franklin D. Roosevelt in The Beginning or the End, MGM's 1946 account of the Manhattan Project.