1. Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude McDowall was a British-American actor, whose career spanned over 270 screen and stage roles across over 60 years.
64 Facts About Roddy McDowall
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Roddy McDowall achieved prominence for his starring roles in How Green Was My Valley, My Friend Flicka, and Lassie Come Home.
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Unlike many of his contemporaries, Roddy McDowall managed to evolve from child star into an adult performer and appeared on Broadway and in films, winning a Tony Award for his performance in Jean Anouilh's The Fighting Cock.
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Roddy McDowall played Cornelius and Caesar in the original Planet of the Apes film series, as well as Galen in the short-lived spin-off television series.
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Roddy McDowall was a frequent guest star on many television series, and won an Emmy Award for a 1961 episode of NBC Sunday Showcase.
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Roddy McDowall served in various positions on the board of governors for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the selection committee for the Kennedy Center Honors, contributing to various charities related to the film industry and film preservation.
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Roddy McDowall was a founding member of the National Film Preservation Board in 1989, and represented the Screen Actors Guild on that board until his death.
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Roddy McDowall was born at 204 Herne Hill Road, Herne Hill, London, the only son of London-born Thomas Andrew Roddy McDowall, a merchant seaman of distant Scottish descent, and his Irish wife Winifred.
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Roddy McDowall attended St Joseph's College, Beulah Hill, Upper Norwood, a Roman Catholic secondary school in London.
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Roddy McDowall's family moved to the United States in 1940 after the outbreak of World War II.
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Roddy McDowall became a naturalized United States citizen on 9 December 1949, and lived in the United States for the rest of his life.
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Roddy McDowall served in the US Army Reserves, and after basic training, was assigned to the 67th Armored Infantry Battalion 13th Armored Division of the US Army's Organized Reserve Corps headquartered in Los Angeles.
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Roddy McDowall served from 1946 to 1954, spanning from the end of World War II to the end of the Korean War.
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Roddy McDowall later served in the 77th Infantry Division from 1960 to 1962.
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Roddy McDowall was billed second to Monty Woolley in The Pied Piper, playing a war orphan, then he had top billing again for an adaptation of My Friend Flicka.
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Roddy McDowall returned to MGM to support Walter Pidgeon in Holiday in Mexico.
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Roddy McDowall turned to the theatre, taking the title role of Young Woodley in a summer stock production in Westport, Connecticut, in July 1946.
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Roddy McDowall then signed a three-year contract with Monogram Pictures, a low-budget studio that welcomed established stars, to make two films a year.
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Roddy McDowall was in a production of Misalliance that ran for 130 performances and which McDowall said "broke the mould" in how he was judged as an actor.
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Roddy McDowall followed it with Escapade with Carroll Baker and Brian Aherne; Ira Levin's No Time for Sergeants, which was a huge hit; Diary of a Scoundrel ; and Good as Gold.
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Roddy McDowall was in another big Broadway hit when he played Mordred in the musical Camelot with Julie Andrews and Richard Burton.
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Roddy McDowall played Ariel in a TV production of The Tempest with Richard Burton and Maurice Evans, then appeared in his first film in almost a decade, The Subterraneans.
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Roddy McDowall continued to work on television in shows such as Sunday Showcase, Naked City, and The Play of the Week.
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Roddy McDowall was in a TV production of The Power and the Glory with Laurence Olivier, George C Scott, and Julie Harris.
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In 1963, Roddy McDowall appeared as Octavian in the film production of Cleopatra, which starred Elizabeth Taylor.
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Roddy McDowall had supporting roles in Fox's Shock Treatment and United Artists' The Greatest Story Ever Told.
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Roddy McDowall was third-billed in The Third Day and received billing as a member of the ensemble cast in The Loved One.
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Roddy McDowall was given a starring role in Lord Love a Duck.
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Roddy McDowall appeared in The Defector and returned briefly to Broadway for The Astrakhan Coat.
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Roddy McDowall was in a TV production of Saint Joan and provided the voice for Cricket on the Hearth.
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In 1968, Roddy McDowall appeared in one of his most memorable roles when he was cast in Planet of the Apes as the ape Cornelius.
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Roddy McDowall appeared in three sequels and a TV spin-off from the film.
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Roddy McDowall was Prince John in The Legend of Robin Hood for TV, and appeared in 5 Card Stud, Journey to the Unknown, It Takes a Thief, Midas Run, Hello Down There, Angel, Angel, Down We Go, Night Gallery, The Name of the Game, and Medical Center.
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Roddy McDowall made his debut and only effort as director with The Ballad of Tam Lin.
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Roddy McDowall was not in the first Apes sequel, but was in the second, Escape from the Planet of the Apes.
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Roddy McDowall was in the television film Terror in the Sky, What's a Nice Girl Like You.
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Roddy McDowall guest-starred on Ironside, The Carol Burnett Show, Columbo, The Delphi Bureau, The Rookies, Mission: Impossible, Barnaby Jones, and McCloud.
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Roddy McDowall made his third Apes film with 1972's Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.
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Roddy McDowall had supporting roles in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean and The Poseidon Adventure, and starred in a pilot that did not go to series, Topper Returns and The Legend of Hell House.
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Roddy McDowall starred in the short-lived TV spin-off series of Planet of the Apes.
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Roddy McDowall's features included Funny Lady, Mean Johnny Barrows, Embryo, Sixth and Main, Laserblast, Rabbit Test, The Cat from Outer Space for Disney, Circle of Iron, Scavenger Hunt, Nutcracker Fantasy, and Disney's The Black Hole in which he voiced one of the robot roles.
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Roddy McDowall had a regular role in the short-lived science-fiction series The Fantastic Journey.
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Roddy McDowall's features included Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen, Evil Under the Sun, Class of 1984, and the cult-classic horror Fright Night.
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Roddy McDowall had voice-over roles in Zoo Ship, GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords, and The Wind in the Willows, and TV series including Bridges to Cross, The Wizard, Murder, She Wrote, Matlock, and Nightmare Classics; his TV films included Remo Williams: The Prophecy and Around the World in 80 Days.
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Roddy McDowall voiced the Mad Hatter in the DC Animated Universe.
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Roddy McDowall did voice work for The Pirates of Dark Water, Timmy's Gift: A Precious Moments Christmas, Camp Candy, The Legend of Prince Valiant, Darkwing Duck, 2 Stupid Dogs, Swat Kats: The Radical Squadron, Red Planet, The Tick, Galaxy Beat, Gargoyles, Duckman, Pinky and the Brain, A Bug's Life, and Godzilla: The Series.
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Roddy McDowall was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1993, when he was surprised by Michael Aspel at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood.
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In 1997, Roddy McDowall hosted the MGM Musicals Tribute at Carnegie Hall.
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Roddy McDowall served for several years in various capacities on the board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization that presents the Academy Awards, and on the selection committee for the Kennedy Center Awards.
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Roddy McDowall was chairman of the Actors' Branch for five terms.
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Roddy McDowall was elected president of the Academy Foundation in 1998, the year that he died.
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Roddy McDowall worked to support the Motion Pictures Retirement Home, where a rose garden named in his honour was officially dedicated on 9 October 2001; it remains a part of the campus.
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Roddy McDowall received recognition as a photographer, working with Look, Vogue, Collier's, and Life.
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Roddy McDowall's work includes a cover story on Mae West for Life and the cover of the 1964 Barbra Streisand album, The Third Album.
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Roddy McDowall took the photograph when Streisand performed on The Judy Garland Show in October 1963.
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Roddy McDowall published five books of photographs, each featuring photos and profile interviews of his celebrity friends interviewing each other, such as Elizabeth Taylor, Judy Garland, Judy Holliday, Maureen O'Hara, Katharine Hepburn, Lauren Bacall, and others.
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Roddy McDowall was a Democrat and supported Adlai Stevenson's campaign during the 1952 presidential election.
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Roddy McDowall's collection consisted of 160 16 mm prints and more than 1,000 video cassettes, at a time before the era of commercial videotapes, when no legal aftermarket existed for films.
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Roddy McDowall had purchased Errol Flynn's home cinema films and transferred them all to tape for longer-lasting archival storage.
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Roddy McDowall was in a relationship with American actor Montgomery Clift for several years in the early 1950s.
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Roddy McDowall devoted himself entirely to Clift and moved from Los Angeles to New York to be closer to his idol.
62.
Roddy McDowall starred with Clift in his final picture, The Defector.
63.
On 3 October 1998, at age 70, Roddy McDowall died of the disease at his home in Studio City, California.
64.
Roddy McDowall's body was cremated and his ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean on 7 October 1998, off Los Angeles County.