British actor (1879-1954). Born in
Sandwich,
Kent, his early
ambitions were minor -- he moved to
Ceylon at age 18 to work as a
tea planter, but a
drought forced him out of business. Returning to
England, he managed a
brewery and took acting lessons to occupy his time. He made his stage debut in a 1902 production of "
Sherlock Holmes" and appeared in a large number of other
plays, ranging from
musical comedy to
Shakespearean drama, in
Britain and the
United States.
Though Greenstreet made the move to
Hollywood movies very late in life -- he was 62 years old and weighed nearly 300 pounds -- his film debut as the
charming and
talkative villain Kaspar Gutman in
John Huston's "
The Maltese Falcon" earned him an
Oscar nomination and lots of positive attention. In the eight years he worked in Hollywood, he made 24 films, including "
Casablanca," "
Across the Pacific," "
The Mask of Dimitrios," "
The Verdict," "
Christmas in Connecticut," "
The Hucksters," "
The Woman in White," and "
Flamingo Road." He made a couple of other movies with
Humphrey Bogart and appeared in eight with
Peter Lorre.
Greenstreet's
obesity contributed to numerous
health problems, including
diabetes. He
retired from acting in 1949 and died four years later, at age 75, in Hollywood.
He has the
honor of speaking one of the
coolest lines in
cinema:
"I'll tell you right out -- I'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk." (from "The Maltese Falcon")
Research from the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com)