1. Michael Rennie was born in Idle near Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, the second son of a Scottish wool mill owner, James Michael Rennie, and his English wife Amelia.
60 Facts About Michael Rennie
1. 2.
Michael Rennie had an elder brother William, younger brother Gordon and sister Edith.
3.
The Michael Rennie business had operated for over 150 years, and the family was relatively well off.
4.
Michael Rennie went to work at the family mill in Bradford, but did not enjoy it.
5.
Michael Rennie worked in a number of occupations, including a stint as a car salesman, and sweeping floors in his uncle's steel ropes factory.
6.
Michael Rennie eventually decided on a career as an actor.
7.
Michael Rennie retained his surname but adopted Michael as his professional name.
8.
Michael Rennie said entering the film industry at this level was a deliberate strategy, so he could learn how pictures were made.
9.
Michael Rennie knew nothing of acting, but was given a contract to play small parts and to work as stand-in for players such as Robert Young and John Loder.
10.
Michael Rennie's first screen acting was an uncredited bit part in the Alfred Hitchcock film Secret Agent, standing in for Robert Young.
11.
Balcon says he saw Michael Rennie act in a scene in East Meets West and fired him immediately afterwards.
12.
Michael Rennie later said he strove to perfect a "mid-Atlantic accent" that could easily be understood by American as well as British audiences which resulted in people thinking he was Canadian.
13.
Shortly after the outbreak of war in Europe on 1 September 1939, Michael Rennie began to receive offers for larger film roles, including This Man Is Dangerous, Dangerous Moonlight and Pimpernel Smith.
14.
Michael Rennie had his first big film role in the suspense drama Tower of Terror.
15.
Michael Rennie enlisted in the RAF Volunteer Reserve on 27 May 1941.
16.
Michael Rennie was officially discharged on 4 August 1942, and then on the following day, he was commissioned "for the emergency" as pilot officer number 127347 on probation in the General Duties Branch of the RAFVR.
17.
Michael Rennie resigned his commission on 1 May 1944.
18.
Michael Rennie had carried out his basic training near Torquay in Devon, after which he was sent to the United States for fighter pilot training under the Arnold Plan.
19.
One of his fellow students was RAF Sergeant Jack Morton, who told an anecdote about when he and Michael Rennie were in the same class:.
20.
Michael Rennie was billed below Lockwood and Vic Oliver, given an "introducing" credit, but his character was the actual protagonist of the film.
21.
Michael Rennie followed this in another movie with Lockwood at Gainsborough, the sensual costume adventure The Wicked Lady.
22.
Michael Rennie was the fifth lead, beneath Lockwood, James Mason, Patricia Roc and Griffith Jones, but it was a good part as the one true love of Lockwood's character.
23.
Michael Rennie's prestige was raised when he was given a single prominent scene as a commander of Roman centurions in Gabriel Pascal's production of George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra, starring Vivien Leigh and Claude Rains.
24.
Michael Rennie had been "loaned out" to another company to make it but then he made his first film for Ostrer at Premiere, The Idol of Paris.
25.
Michael Rennie was one of several English actors cast in the 20th Century Fox medieval adventure story The Black Rose, shot in England starring Tyrone Power and Orson Welles.
26.
Michael Rennie was fifth-billed after Cecile Aubry and Jack Hawkins.
27.
Michael Rennie became good friends with Power, who spoke well of the actor to Fox executives.
28.
Michael Rennie said director Robert Wise told him to do the role "with dignity but not with superiority".
29.
Seven years later, on 3 March 1962, when The Day the Earth Stood Still made its television premiere on NBC's NBC Saturday Night at the Movies, Michael Rennie appeared in a two-minute introductory prologue before the start of the film.
30.
Michael Rennie went on to support Power in I'll Never Forget You then had good roles in the ensemble drama Phone Call from a Stranger and in the wartime spy thriller, 5 Fingers, as the agent who tracks down James Mason's spy.
31.
Michael Rennie did some narration for The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel and would provide voiceovers for several Fox films, such as Pony Soldier, Titanic, The Desert Rats and Prince Valiant.
32.
Michael Rennie's performance was respectfully, but not enthusiastically, received by the critics.
33.
Michael Rennie was launched on a thriving career as a top supporting actor at Fox, often playing figures of authority, such as doctors or military officers.
34.
Michael Rennie was second-billed in Sailor of the King, playing an admiral, as supporting actor to Jeffrey Hunter.
35.
Michael Rennie was leading man to Jeanne Crain in a thriller, Dangerous Crossing, which re-used sets and props from Titanic, for which Rennie spoke the closing narration.
36.
Michael Rennie had a showy role as Saint Peter in The Robe, the first movie in CinemaScope and the biggest hit of the year.
37.
Michael Rennie supported Tyrone Power once more in King of the Khyber Rifles, as a brigadier in British India, then he played his first villain for Fox, an evil Khan in the "eastern", Princess of the Nile, opposite Jeffrey Hunter.
38.
Michael Rennie reprised his role as Peter in Demetrius and the Gladiators and was lent out for Mambo.
39.
In Desiree, Michael Rennie played the future Charles XIV John of Sweden opposite Marlon Brando as Napoleon Bonaparte.
40.
Michael Rennie received good reviews for his performance as an art dealer in "A Man of Taste" for Climax with Zsa Zsa Gabor.
41.
Michael Rennie supported Ginger Rogers in Teenage Rebel and had a good role as the man murdered by James Mason in Island in the Sun, Darryl Zanuck's popular melodrama.
42.
Michael Rennie returned to Britain to play the lead in a war film Battle of the V-1.
43.
Michael Rennie was going to co-produce and star in a war film for Eros Films about bomb disposal experts, Getaway, but it was not made.
44.
Michael Rennie had top billing in a mountaineering film for Disney, Third Man on the Mountain, although he was really the support for James MacArthur.
45.
Michael Rennie became a familiar face on television, taking the role of Harry Lime in The Third Man, an Anglo-American syndicated television series very loosely derived from the film.
46.
At the start of the 1960s, Michael Rennie made his only Broadway appearance in Mary, Mary playing Dirk Winsten, a jaded film star.
47.
Michael Rennie was cast in a lead role in the comedy play Any Wednesday but left the project during out of town try outs.
48.
Michael Rennie was replaced by Don Porter and the play was a huge success.
49.
Michael Rennie played in The Great Adventure, an anthology series about remarkable events in American history, he portrayed Confederate president Jefferson Davis.
50.
Michael Rennie played Daniel Boone in the episodes "The Sound of Wings" and "First in War, First in Peace"; Lost in Space.
51.
Michael Rennie was in three episodes of The Invaders.
52.
Michael Rennie completed what amounted to guest roles in two films, The Power and The Devil's Brigade as Lieutenant General Mark W Clark, before moving to Switzerland in the latter part of that year.
53.
Michael Rennie was married twice: first to Joan England, from 1938 to 1945, then to actress Margaret McGrath from 1947 to 1960; their son, David Michael Rennie, is an English circuit judge in Lewes, Sussex, England.
54.
Michael Rennie revealed he had been separated from her since November 1953.
55.
Michael Rennie had a son, John Marshall, with his longtime friend and mistress, Renee, whose later married name was Taylor.
56.
However, Michael Rennie kept a watchful eye on John Marshall over the years, even after his marriage to Maggie McGrath, and both families remained in constant touch until Michael Rennie's death.
57.
Michael Rennie was briefly engaged to Mary Gardner, the former wife of Hollywood director Otto Preminger.
58.
In 1959, Preminger was divorcing Mary and claimed Michael Rennie was having an affair with her.
59.
In 1958, Michael Rennie said he earned $117,000 a year which provided him with $36,000 net.
60.
Michael Rennie was buried in Harlow Hill Cemetery in Harrogate.