Edward G. Robinson (born Emanuel Goldenberg; December 12, 1893 – January 26, 1973) was an American actor of stage and screen, who was popular during Hollywood's Golden Age. He appeared in 30 Broadway plays,[1] and more than 100 films, during a 50-year career,[2] and is best remembered for his tough-guy roles as gangsters in such films as Little Caesar and Key Largo. During his career, Robinson received the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor for his performance in House of Strangers.
During the 1930s and 1940s, Robinson was an outspoken public critic of fascism and Nazism, which were growing in strength in Europe in the years which led up to World War II. His activism included contributing over $250,000 to more than 850 organizations that were involved in war relief, along with contributions to cultural, educational, and religious groups. During the 1950s, he was called to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee during the Red Scare, but he was cleared of any deliberate Communist involvement when he claimed that he was "duped" by several people whom he named (including screenwriter Dalton Trumbo), according to the official Congressional record, "Communist infiltration of the Hollywood motion-picture industry".[3][4] As a result of being investigated, he found himself on Hollywood's graylist, people who were on the Hollywood blacklist maintained by the major studios, but could find work at minor film studios on what was called Poverty Row.
Robinson was born Emmanuel Goldenberg (Yiddish: עמנואל גאָלדענבערג) on December 12, 1893, in a Yiddish-speaking Romanian Jewish family in Bucharest, the fifth son of Sarah (née Guttman) and Yeshaya Moyshe Goldenberg (later called Morris in the U.S.), a builder.[8]
One of many actors who saw their careers flourish rather than falter in the new sound film era, he made only three films prior to 1930, but left his stage career that year and made 14 films between 1930 and 1932.
At this point, Robinson was becoming an established film actor. What began his rise to stardom was an acclaimed performance as the gangster Caesar Enrico "Rico" Bandello in Little Caesar (1931) at Warner Bros.
Robinson signed a long-term contract with Warner Bros., casting him in another gangster film, Smart Money (1931), his only movie with James Cagney. He was reunited with Mervyn LeRoy, director of Little Caesar, in Five Star Final (1931), playing a journalist, and played a Tong gangster in The Hatchet Man (1932).
At the time World War II broke out in Europe, he played an FBI agent in Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), the first American film that portrayed Nazism as a threat to the United States.
He volunteered for military service in June 1942 but was disqualified due to his age which was 48,[16] although he became an active and vocal critic of fascism and Nazism during that period.[17]
Robinson appeared for director John Huston as the gangster Johnny Rocco in Key Largo (1948), the last of five films that he made with Humphrey Bogart, and the only one in which Robinson played a supporting role to Bogart's character in the film. It is also the only film with Bogart where Bogart's character killed Robinson's character in a gunfight, instead of the opposite. Around the same time, he was cast in starring roles for Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948) and House of Strangers (1949).
His career's rehabilitation received a boost in 1954, when the anti-communist film director Cecil B. DeMille cast him as the traitorous Dathan in The Ten Commandments. The film was released in 1956, as was his psychological thriller Nightmare. After a subsequent short absence from the screen, Robinson's film career — augmented by an increasing number of television roles — re-started in 1958/1959, when he was second-billed, after Frank Sinatra, in the 1959 release A Hole in the Head.
Robinson was originally cast in the role of Dr. Zaius in Planet of the Apes (1968) and he even went so far as to film a screen test with Charlton Heston. However, Robinson dropped out of the project before its production began due to heart problems and concerns over the long hours that he would have needed to spend under the heavy ape makeup. He was replaced by Maurice Evans.
Heston, as president of the Screen Actors Guild, presented Robinson with its annual award in 1969, "in recognition of his pioneering work in organizing the union, his service during World War II, and his 'outstanding achievement in fostering the finest ideals of the acting profession.'"[11]: 124
Robinson was never nominated for an Academy Award, but in 1973 he was awarded an honorary Oscar in recognition that he had "achieved greatness as a player, a patron of the arts and a dedicated citizen ... in sum, a Renaissance man".[2] He had been notified of the honor, but he died two months before the award ceremony took place, so the award was accepted by his widow, Jane Robinson.[2]
During the 1930s, Robinson was an outspoken public critic of fascism and Nazism, donating more than $250,000 to 850 political and charitable organizations between 1939 and 1949. He was host to the Committee of 56, which gathered at his home on December 9, 1938, signing a "Declaration of Democratic Independence," which called for a boycott of all German-made products.[17] After the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, while he was not a supporter of Communism, he appeared at Soviet war relief rallies in order to give moral aid to America's new ally, which he said could join "together in their hatred of Hitlerism".[11]: 107
Although he attempted to enlist in the military when the United States formally entered World War II, he was unable to do so because of his age;[16] instead, the Office of War Information appointed him as a Special Representative based in London.[11]: 106 From there, taking advantage of his multilingual skills, he delivered radio addresses in over six languages to European countries that had fallen under Nazi domination.[11]: 106 His talent as a radio speaker in the U.S. had previously been recognized by the American Legion, which had given him an award for his "outstanding contribution to Americanism through his stirring patriotic appeals".[11]: 106 Robinson was also an active member of the Hollywood Democratic Committee, serving on its executive board in 1944, during which time he became an "enthusiastic" campaigner for Roosevelt's reelection that same year.[11]: 107 During the 1940s, Robinson also contributed to the cultural diplomacy initiatives of Roosevelt's Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs in support of Pan-Americanism through his broadcasts to South America on the CBS "Cadena da las Américas" radio network.[20]
In early July 1944, less than a month after the Invasion of Normandy by Allied forces, Robinson traveled to Normandy to entertain the troops, becoming the first movie star to go there for the USO.[11]: 106 [21] He personally donated $100,000 (equal to $1,730,813 today) to the USO.[11]: 107 After returning to the U.S., he continued his active involvement in the war effort by going to shipyards and defense plants in order to inspire workers, in addition to appearing at rallies in order to help sell war bonds.[11]: 107
After the war ended, Robinson publicly spoke out in support of democratic rights for all Americans, especially in demanding equality for Black workers in the workplace. He endorsed the Fair Employment Practices Commission's call to end workplace discrimination.[11]: 109 Black leaders praised him as "one of the great friends of the Negro and a great advocator of Democracy".[11]: 109 Robinson also campaigned for the civil rights of African Americans, helping many to overcome segregation and discrimination.[22]
During the years when Robinson spoke out against fascism and Nazism, he was not a supporter of Communism, but he did not criticize the Soviet Union, which he saw as an ally against Hitler. However, the film historian Steven J. Ross observes "activists who attacked Hitler without simultaneously attacking Stalin were vilified by conservative critics as either Communists, Communist dupes, or, at best, as naiveliberal dupes."[11]: 128 In addition, Robinson learned that 11 out of the more than 850 charities and groups that he had helped over the previous decade were listed as Communist front organizations by the FBI.[23] As a result, he was called to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1950 and 1952, and he was also threatened with blacklisting.[24]
As shown in the full House Un-American Activities Committee transcript for April 30, 1952, Robinson repudiated some of the organizations that he had belonged to in the 1930s and 1940s.[24][25] and stated that he felt he had been duped or made use of unawares "by the sinister forces who were members, and probably in important positions in these [front] organizations."[11]: 121 When asked whom he personally knew who might have "duped" him, he replied, "Well, you had Albert Maltz, and you have Dalton Trumbo, and you have ... John Howard Lawson. I knew Frank Tuttle. I didn't know [Edward] Dmytryk at all. There are the Buchmans, that I know, Sidney Buchman and all that sort of thing. It never entered my mind that any of these people were Communists."[26] Despite accusing these persons of being duplicitous towards him about their political aims, Robinson never directly accused anyone of being a Communist. His own name was cleared, but in the aftermath, his career noticeably suffered; he was offered smaller roles infrequently. In October 1952, he wrote an article titled "How the Reds made a Sucker Out of Me", and it was published in the American Legion Magazine.[27] The chair of the committee, Francis E. Walter, told Robinson at the end of his testimonies that the Committee "never had any evidence presented to indicate that you were anything more than a very choice sucker."[11]: 122
Robinson married stage actress Gladys Lloyd Cassell in 1927. The couple had a son, Edward G. Robinson, Jr., known as Manny, (1933–1974), and a daughter from Robinson's wife's first marriage.[28] The couple divorced in 1956. In 1958, Robinson married Jane Bodenheimer, a dress designer professionally known as Jane Arden. He lived in Palm Springs, California.[29]
In contrast to the gangsters he portrayed in film, Robinson was a soft-spoken and cultured man.[2] He was a passionate art collector, eventually building up a significant private collection. In 1956, however, he was forced to sell his collection to pay for his divorce settlement with Gladys Robinson; his finances had also suffered due to underemployment in the early 1950s.[11]: 120
In October 2000, Robinson's image was imprinted on a U.S. postage stamp, the sixth in its Legends of Hollywood series.[11]: 125 [32]
Robinson has been the inspiration for a number of animated television characters, usually caricatures of his most distinctive 'snarling gangster' guise. An early version of the gangster character Rocky, featured in the Bugs Bunny cartoon Racketeer Rabbit, shared his likeness. This version of the character also appears briefly in Justice League, in the episode "Comfort and Joy", as an alien with Robinson's face and non-human body, who hovers past the screen as a background character.
Epstein, Lawrence Jeffrey (2007). Edge of a Dream: The Story of Jewish Immigrants on New York's Lower East Side, 1880–1920. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN978-0-7879-8622-3.
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