1. Sir Charles Simon Mendl was a British diplomat and actor who has been described as "one of the most colourful figures in the diplomatic and social life of Paris".
12 Facts About Charles Mendl
1. 2.
Mendl was born in London in 1871, the second son of Ferdinand Mendl and Jeanette Rachel; their firstborn son was Sigismund Mendl.
3.
Charles Mendl was educated at Harrow School, after which he started a branch of his father's grain importing business in Buenos Aires.
4.
Charles Mendl served as an intelligence officer in the 25th Infantry Brigade during the First World War and left after he sustained serious injury due to a horse falling on him in 1915.
5.
Charles Mendl worked in Paris for Admiralty intelligence in 1918, when he was attached to the British embassy during the Paris Peace Conference.
6.
Charles Mendl was made a Knight Bachelor in 1924 for services to the Crown, allegedly due to his retrieval of letters from a gigolo who had been blackmailing Prince George, Duke of Kent.
7.
Charles Mendl had received part of his 1922 salary from secret service funds.
8.
Charles Mendl's connections meant that he was able to invite the socialist Leon Blum to the embassy after his 1936 election, whilst the ambassador George Clerk hadn't met him.
9.
Charles Mendl married interior decorator Elsie de Wolfe in 1926, at which point he was head of the press section in the British embassy in Paris, with the wedding held at the British consulate in Paris.
10.
Charles Mendl was an amateur baritone singer, taught by Jean de Reszke.
11.
Charles Mendl appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's 1946 film Notorious in the role of Commodore who meets Ingrid Bergman's character at a party.
12.
Charles Mendl returned to France after the end of the Second World War.