SYDNEY GREENSTREET BIOGRAPHY & FILMOGRAPHY:
Sydney Greenstreet was born on December 27th, 1879 in Sandwich, England in the United Kingdom with the birth name Sydney Hughes Greenstreet. His father worked as a leather merchant and he had a total of seven siblings.
At the age of eighteen, Greenstreet left home in search of a career as a Ceylon tea planter, but due to a major drought he was put out of business and had to return home to England. He found a job as a brewery manger and also took acting lessons part time.
In 1902, he made his stage debut playing a murderer in a production of, "Sherlock Holmes". He then began to continue making a living as a stage actor working in England as well as the United States. He did anything from musicals to comedy and then decided to take a chance in the film industry.
He began working for Warner brothers in 1941 and his film debut was in, "The Maltese Falcon" (1941) co-starring with Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre and Mary Astor, when he was sixty two years of age. At this stage in his life he weighed nearly 300 pounds which was already taking a huge toll on his life. In a span of eight years he appeared in a total of twenty four films all while he was lacking good health. One of those films was a western, "They Died With Their Boots On" (1941) starring alongside Errol Flynn, Ronald Reagan, Arthur Kennedy, Olivia de Havilland and Raymond Massey. He is also best known for his role in, "Casablanca" (1942) also starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt and Paul Henreid. His final film role was in, "Malaya" (1949).
Greenstreet retired from acting in 1949 and even though his film career lasted only a total of eight years, he is still one of the most remembered and recognized film actors. Greenstreet did not completely leave the entertainment industry as he did star in the lead character role on NBC's radio show, "The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe" (1950-1951).
Sydney Greenstreet was married to Dorothy Marie Ogden from 1918 and together they had one child, John Ogden who passed away on March 4th, 2004 at the age of eighty four. It is unknown when the couple divorced. Greenstreet passed away on January 18th, 1954 in Hollywood, California from effects of diabetes and nephritis, which was a kidney disease. He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Cemetery in Glendale California.
Filmography
1949 Malaya
1949 Flamingo Road
1948 The Velvet Touch
1948 The Woman in White
1948 Ruthless
1947 The Hucksters
1947 That Way with Women
1946 The Verdict
1946 Devotion
1946 Three Strangers
1945 Christmas in Connecticut
1945 Conflict
1945 Pillow to Post
1944 The Conspirators
1944 The Mask of Dimitrios
1944 Between Two Worlds
1944 Passage to Marseille
1943 Background to Danger
1942 Casablanca
1942 Across the Pacific
1941 They Died with Their Boots On
1941 The Maltese Falcon
