Lionel Atwill
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lionel Atwill (March 1, 1885 - April 22, 1946) was an English stage and film actor born in Croydon, London.
He began his career in theatre but was most famous for his horror roles in the 1930s. His two most memorable parts were as the crazed, disfigured sculptor in Mystery of the Wax Museum (Warner Brothers, 1933) -- a role also played by Vincent Price in the 1953 remake, House of Wax -- and as Inspector Krogh in Son of Frankenstein (1939), memorably sent up by Kenneth Mars in Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein (1974).
When he was not cast in macabre roles, Atwill often appeared in the '30s as righteous-minded authority figures. For example, in 1937's less memorable, but still appealing The Wrong Road for RKO, investigator Atwill persuades a young, bank-robbing ingenue played by Helen Mack and her boyfriend Richard Cromwell to return their ill-gotten $ 100,000 and give up a life of crime.
Atwill remained a stalwart of the Universal horror films until his career flagged in the 1940s because of a widely publicized sex scandal in 1943, during the investigation of which he was charged with perjury at a rape trial. The Hays Office had him blacklisted, and he later returned to the theatre. He was married four times, lastly to Paula Prueter, who carried his only living child, Lionel Anthony Atwill. His third wife, Louise Cromwell Brooks, had previously been married to Douglas MacArthur.
His son, "Tony", is a retired writer with an only child, Amanda.
