Al Jolson

Signed album page, circa 1930.

Ronald Colman (1891-1958) was an English actor. After a few years on the stage, Colman had first appeared in films in England in 1917 and 1919 for Cecil Hepworth, and subsequently with the old Broadwest Film Company in The Snow of the Desert. While appearing on stage in New York in La Tendress, Director Henry King saw him, and engaged him as the leading man in the 1923 film, The White Sister, opposite Lillian Gish, and was an immediate success.

As a result Colman virtually abandoned the stage for film. He became a very popular silent film star in both romantic and adventure films, among them The Dark Angel (1925), Stella Dallas (1926), Beau Geste (1927), and The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926). His dark hair and eyes and his athletic and riding ability (he did most of his own stunts until late in his career) led reviewers to describe him as a “Valentino type”. He was often cast in similar, exotic roles. Towards the end of the silents era, Colman was teamed with Hungarian actress Vilma Bánky under Samuel Goldwyn and the two were a popular movie team rivalling Greta Garbo and John Gilbert.

Although he was a huge success in silent films, he was unable to capitalize on one of his chief assets until the advent of the talking picture, “his beautifully modulated and cultured voice”, also described as “a bewitching, finely-modulated, resonant voice”. His first major talkie success was in 1930, when he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for two roles—Condemned and Bulldog Drummond. He appeared in a number of notable films including Raffles, The Masquerader, Clive of India, A Tale of Two Cities in 1935, Under Two Flags, The Prisoner of Zenda and Lost Horizon in 1937, If I Were King in 1938, and The Talk of the Town in 1941. He won the Best Actor Oscar in 1948 for A Double Life. At the time of his death, Colman was contracted by MGM for the lead role in Village of the Damned. However, Colman died and the film became a British production starring George Sanders, who had married Colman’s widow, Benita Hume.

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