Bernard Granville

Bernard R. Granville (July 4, 1888 – October 5, 1936) was an American actor, singer, and minstrel show performer whose Broadway career spanned two decades, from 1912 to 1932. Born in West Virginia, the only child of Algernon Granville and Cora B. Chamberlain Granville (1864–1937), he became known as "the twentieth century comedian" and was discovered by producer Florenz Ziegfeld.

Granville began his professional life at age 18 in 1906 as a minstrel show performer with Al G. Field, remaining with that company until 1911. He subsequently worked as a circus clown with Ringling Brothers before returning to the minstrel circuit with Donnelly and Hatfield. In 1911, he appeared in Marriage a la Carte at the La Salle Theater in Chicago, Illinois, and later performed in A Winsome Widow at the Moulin Rouge in Manhattan, New York City.

His association with Florenz Ziegfeld brought him to Broadway, where he appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1912, 1915, and 1916. His broader Broadway career included The Whirl of the World (1914), The Passing Show of 1914, Dancing Around (1914), Morris Gest's Midnight Whirl (1919), The Little Blue Devil (1919), the Ziegfeld Follies of 1920, Frank Fay's Fables (1922), Earl Carroll's Vanities (1923 and 1925), Go-Go, Castles in the Air (1927), in which he played the role of Monty Blair, and Whistling in the Dark (1932).

During World War I, Granville served in France as a lieutenant and pilot. He was married twice: first to Rosina Timponi, with whom he had a daughter, actress Bonita Granville; that marriage ended in divorce. He subsequently married Eleanor Christie. Granville died of pneumonia on October 5, 1936, in Hollywood, California, at the age of 48.