Official Lionel Atwill - Web Site & Fan Club Articles |
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On October 14, 1942, Lionel Atwill was sentenced to five years' probation on a perjury conviction stemming
from his grand jury testimony the previous year on a morals charge stemming from his showing pornographic movies to party
goers at his home during his 1940 Christmas party. Atwill, the victim of an attempted shakedown, admitted he lied to an earlier grand jury. Seven months
into his sentence he applied for, and was granted, termination of his sentence and his record was expunged. Unfortunately for Atwill, the Hays Office was a different matter. He'd been unemployed during his sentence,
his wealthy wife Louise (the ex-wife of Douglas MacArthur) divorced him in June 1943, and he no longer felt welcome in Hollywood.
Lionel Atwill spent weeks looking for roles on Broadway without success and limped back west, where he managed to gain employment at the one studio that specialized
in hiring fallen name (and no-name) talent on the cheap, Producers Releasing Corporation. The very definition of Poverty Row, PRC was a far cry from his glory days at the major studios. Along
Gower Gulch, "features" were usually allotted a five-day shooting schedule and retakes were forbidden. Although Atwill was able to return sporadically to Universal for some bits and serials, he was condemned
to spending the remainder of his life working in Poverty Row. Atwill died of lung cancer while working on a quickie serial,
Lost City of the Jungle (1946). |
Lionel Atwill was born into a wealthy family and was educated at London's prestigious
Mercer School to become an architect, but his interest turned to the stage. He worked his way progressively into the craft
and debuted at age 20 at the Garrick Theatre in London. He acted and improved regularly thereafter,
especially in the plays of Henrik Ibsen and George Bernard Shaw. Atwill came to the US in 1915 and would appear in some 25 plays on Broadway between 1917 and 1931, but he was already trying his hand in silent films by 1918. He
had a sonorous voice and dictatorial British accent that served him well for the stage and just as well for sound movies.
He did some Vitaphone short subjects in 1928 and then his first real film role in Silent Witness (1932) (also titled "The Verdict"). It's hard to forget his Inspector Krogh in Son of Frankenstein (1939), wherein he agrees to a game of darts with Basil Rathbone and proceeds to impale the darts through the left sleeve of his uniform (the character
sported a wooden left arm). And he sends himself up with rolling and blustering dialogue as the glory-hog ham stage actor
Rawitch in the classic To Be or Not to Be (1942) with Jack Benny. However, Atwill effectively ruined his burgeoning film career in 1943 after he was implicated
in what was described as an "orgy" at his home, naked guests and pornographic films included--and a rape perpetrated during
the proceedings. Atwill "lied like a gentleman," it was said, in the court proceedings to protect the identities of his guests
and was convicted of perjury and sentenced to five years' probation. He is more remembered for the horror films generally than for better efforts, but they
have fueled his continued popularity and a bid by the Southern California Lionel Atwill Fan Club to petition for a Hollywood
Blvd. star (he never received one). IMDb Mini Biography By: William McPeak
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