Biography
Veteran British stage actor and director Claude King made his first film in 1923, playing Lord Charles Chetwyn in the historical drama
Six Days. Brought to America by MGM, the most "British" of Hollywood's studios, King essayed aristocratic roles in such films as
Lon Chaney's
London After Midnight (1927) and Mr. Wu (1928). One of his earliest talkie assignments was the plum role of Sir John Petrie in Paramount's The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu. He spent the 1930s as in general-purpose "English gentleman" assignment. Curiously, some of his better roles, notably General Fletcher in
Bonnie Scotland (1935) and the Hollywood producer who reacts in mute astonishment as
Janet Gaynor launches into a Garbo imitation in
A Star is Born (1937), were unbilled. Claude King ended his Hollywood career where it began, at MGM. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide