John Loder (born William John Muir Lowe;[citation needed] 3 January 1898 – 26 December 1988) was established as a British film actor in Germany and Britain before migrating to the United States in 1928 for work in the new talkies. He worked in Hollywood for two periods, becoming an American citizen in 1947. After living also in Argentina, he became a naturalized Argentinian citizen in 1959.
Leaving the cavalry, Loder went into business with a German friend, Walter Becker, establishing a pickle factory in Potsdam. Later he began to develop an interest in acting. He appeared at the British Theatre Guild in Berlin and enjoyed success in productions of The Last of Mrs Cheyney, which had opened in London in 1925, and Loyalties.[8]
Loder left Germany to return briefly to the United Kingdom. He had a support role in The First Born (1928), playing Madeleine Carroll's love interest. That year he sailed to the United States on the SS Île de France, bound for Hollywood to try his luck in the new medium of "talkies".[citation needed]
Loder returned to Britain. He starred in a comedy for Herbert Wilcox, Money Means Nothing (1932), and was reunited with Korda in Wedding Rehearsal (1933).
After Britain entered the Second World War, Loder returned to the United States. He coasted into a career in B movie roles, usually playing upper-crust characters. He also played one role onstage on Broadway, in 1947's For Love or Money opposite June Lockhart.[citation needed]
In the early 1940s, Loder was host of Silver Theater, a dramatic anthology on CBS radio.[15] He also starred in the programme's 11 June 1944 episode.[16]
He supported in an A film, One More Tomorrow (1946) and appeared opposite then-wife Hedy Lamarr in Dishonored Lady (1947). Loder then appeared in a minor Broadway hit in For Love or Money (1947–48). Around this time he began to focus increasingly on business as opposed to acting.[17]
He was unmarried when he fathered his first son.[18] The boy followed his father to Eton and served in the Grenadier Guards. He later became a theatrical and literary agent, and was married three times. Loder's son, Robin Lowe, was married to British actress Hilary Tindall (1938–1992). She played Ann Hammond in the 1970s BBC TV series The Brothers.[19]
Secondly, he wed Austrian-American actress Hedy Lamarr in the United States (married 1943–47). He and Lamarr had three children together: Denise (b. 1945) and Anthony Loder (b. 1947), and Lamarr's son, James Lamarr Loder (b. 1939), whom Loder adopted after their marriage. [21] Throughout her life, Lamarr claimed that her first son, James, was not biologically related to her; he was adopted during her marriage to Gene Markey.[22][23] However, years later, her son found documentation that he was the out-of-wedlock son of Lamarr and Loder. A later DNA test proved him not to be biologically related to either.
Loder's other wives were Sophie Kabel, Evelyn Auff Mordt, and finally, in 1958, the heiress Alba Julia Lagomarsino of Argentina. After their marriage, he lived on her 25,000-acre cattle ranch and spent much time at the Jockey Club in Buenos Aires.[24]
After they divorced in 1972, Loder returned to London.[25] He resided for some years in a house opposite Harrods department store.[citation needed]
In 1947, Loder had become an American citizen. In 1959, he became a naturalised citizen of the United Kingdom. Given his varied residencies, he had been considered of "uncertain nationality" by that time.[26]
Later years
He published his autobiography, Hollywood Hussar, in 1977. Loder's general health deteriorated in his eighties, and he was admitted in 1982 to the Distressed Gentlefolks Aid Association's Nursing Home in Vicarage Gate, Kensington. He went weekly by taxi to his London club, 'Bucks', in Mayfair, for luncheon. He died in London, aged 90, in 1988.[27]
^"BRITISH ACTOR". The Daily News. Vol. XLIX, no. 17, 111. Western Australia. 7 March 1930. p. 10 (HOME FINAL EDITION). Retrieved 17 September 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
^"JOHN LODER'S CHREEB". The Daily News. Vol. LV, no. 18, 847. Western Australia. 15 August 1935. p. 10 (CITY FINAL). Retrieved 17 September 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
