Harry Cyril Delevanti (23 February 1887 – 13 December 1975) was an English character actor, with a long career in American films during the Golden Age of Hollywood. He appeared in some 170 productions, and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture for his performance in John Huston's The Night of the Iguana (1964).
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Early years
Harry Cyril Delevanti was born on 23 February 1889 in London, to music professor Edward Prospero Richard Delevanti and his wife Mary Elizabeth (née Rowbotham). His father was of Italian descent.
Career
Delevanti had a career as an actor on the English stage and, after his emigration to the United States in 1921, performed on the American stage throughout the 1920s. He also worked as drama coach, notably to Douglas Fairbanks and James Craig. During the 1930s, he was the artistic director of little theatre in Houston, Texas.
His first film appearance was in Devotion (1931). In 1938, credited with his first name misspelled 'Syril', Delevanti portrayed Wing Fu in the serial Red Barry; shortly thereafter, the film's director, Ford Beebe, would marry Delevanti's daughter, Kitty. From the 1940s, Delevanti appeared in many small roles, frequently uncredited, in such films as Phantom of the Opera (1943), Confidential Agent (1945), Deception (1946) and Forever Amber (1947), Charlie Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux (1947) and Limelight (1952), David and Bathsheba (1951), Les Girls (1957), Bye Bye Birdie (1963), and Mary Poppins (1964).
