Arthur Gould-Porter

Arthur Gould-Porter (4 January 1905 – 2 January 1987) was an English actor born in Penzance, Cornwall, to Archibald Gould-Porter and his wife, Mabel Amor. His career encompassed stage, film, and television work spanning from the early 1930s through 1977. He is perhaps best remembered for playing Captain Greer in Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) and for his recurring role as Ravenswood the butler in the television comedy series The Beverly Hillbillies. He was at times credited under the names Arthur E. Gould-Porter and A. E. Gould-Porter.

By the early 1930s Gould-Porter had relocated to the United States, and in 1931 he appeared at the Palm Beach Playhouse in A. A. Milne's Mr. Pim Passes By to favorable reviews. His Broadway career began in February 1932 at the Forrest Theatre, where he appeared in the comedy play New York to Cherbourg. He returned to Broadway in 1935 for an eighteen-month run at the Broadhurst Theatre in Laurence Housman's Victoria Regina. Further Broadway engagements followed, including Bachelor Born and Oscar Wilde, both during the 1938–39 season. His final Broadway appearance came in 1948 at the Booth Theatre in Keith Winter's The Rats of Norway, a production that closed after just three days.

Gould-Porter began pursuing film work in 1942, taking uncredited roles in Eagle Squadron, The Black Swan, and Random Harvest. That same year he received his first credited film role, playing Freddie in the American thriller Nightmare. Throughout the 1940s he continued accumulating screen credits, appearing in Jane Eyre (1943), National Velvet (1944), and A Double Life (1947). After his brief return to the stage in 1948, he resumed film work in 1951 with a role as a chauffeur in Kind Lady.

Television became an increasingly significant part of Gould-Porter's career from 1952 onward, beginning with an appearance in the detective series Saber of London. On the film side, he appeared in The Girls of Pleasure Island, the Tony Curtis-led biopic Houdini (1953), and Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1953), in which he played a bartender. Between 1955 and 1957 he made appearances on The Colgate Comedy Hour, The 20th Century-Fox Hour, Topper, Lux Video Theatre, and The Joseph Cotten Show. Credited film roles during this period included Lady Godiva of Coventry (1955) and Top Secret Affair (1957).

From 1956 to 1960, Gould-Porter appeared in eight episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and he later took a role in an actual Hitchcock feature, playing Freddy the Bookseller in Torn Curtain (1966). His most sustained television presence during the 1960s came through The Beverly Hillbillies, in which he appeared as the recurring character Ravenswood the butler across eight episodes between 1962 and 1966. Additional small-screen credits from that era included Adventures in Paradise, One Step Beyond, Sea Hunt, and The Rogues. He had a bit part in Richard Fleischer's Doctor Dolittle (1967) and appeared in the musical Darling Lili (1970) before taking the role of Captain Greer in Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). His final screen credit came in 1977, when he portrayed Winston Churchill in the television film Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years.

Gould-Porter retired to Los Angeles. He never married and died there on 2 January 1987, two days before his eighty-second birthday.