Biography
Veteran British stage actor Lawrence Grant entered films in 1918, when his marked resemblance to Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm made him a "natural" for such epics as To Hell with the Kaiser. An acknowledged expert in American Indian lore, Grant also took time in 1918 to produce an experimental color film about Native Americans. Sound proved no obstacle to Grant's film career, as he proved in his first talkie role, the scurrilous Dr. Lakington in
Bulldog Drummond (1929). He later appeared with his
Drummond co-star
Ronald Colman in such films as
The Unholy Garden (1931) and
Lost Horizon (1937). Usually a villain, Grant enjoyed a sizeable sympathetic role as Sir Lionel Barton, the luckless aristocrat tortured to death by the insidious Boris Karloff, in
The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932). Active until 1945, Lawrence Grant could be seen in minor roles (often unbilled) in such horror efforts as
Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) and
The Living Ghost (1944). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide