Colin Clive

Colin Clive, born Colin Clive-Greig on 20 January 1900 in Saint-Malo, France, was a British theatre and film actor whose Broadway appearances spanned 1930 to 1935. His father, Colin Philip Greig, was an English colonel, and his mother, Caroline Margaret Lugard Clive, belonged to the aristocratic Clive family. In a 1935 interview, Clive attributed his mother's decision to settle in France to her desire to escape the disruptions of the Second Boer War. His family intended him for a military career, and he attended Stonyhurst College before enrolling at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. A riding accident there left him with both knees broken after he was thrown from and crushed by a horse, and during his recovery he resolved to pursue acting instead. He subsequently spent three years as a member of the Hull Repertory Theatre Company.

Clive's stage career produced several notable credits before his Broadway work. He originated the role of Steve Baker, the white husband of the racially mixed Julie LaVerne, in the first London production of Show Boat, a production that also featured Cedric Hardwicke and Paul Robeson. He first collaborated with director James Whale in the Savoy Theatre production of Journey's End, a working relationship that would carry over into film. On Broadway, Clive appeared in four productions: Overture, Eight Bells, The Lake, and Libel.

His screen debut came in the 1930 film adaptation of Journey's End, again directed by Whale, in which he played the tormented alcoholic Captain Stanhope. The role that brought him the widest recognition, however, was Dr. Henry Frankenstein in Whale's 1931 film Frankenstein, a part he reprised in the 1935 sequel Bride of Frankenstein. His delivery of the line "It's alive, it's alive!" from the original film was later recognized by the American Film Institute as one of the 100 greatest movie quotes in cinema history. In a 1935 interview with Film Weekly, Clive stated that he disliked horror films and preferred serious dramatic roles, saying he appeared in the genre for financial reasons and because audiences responded to his performances.

Beyond horror, Clive worked as a leading man opposite several prominent film actresses of the era, including Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Corinne Griffith, and Jean Arthur. He played Edward Rochester opposite Virginia Bruce in the 1934 adaptation of Jane Eyre, and appeared in a starring role in Clive of India in 1935, a biopic about his own ancestor Robert Clive, though he remarked that he was disappointed not to have portrayed his ancestor directly. On 14 November 1935, he and Leo G. Carroll starred in a radio play titled The Other Place, written by John L. Balderston for The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour, hosted by Rudy Vallee. In 1934, author Ayn Rand wrote Clive a fan letter praising his stage performance in Journey's End, and Clive replied that he was deeply moved by it and intended to keep it.

Clive married actress Jeanne de Casalis in June 1929. By 1935 the two were living separately, with Clive residing in Los Angeles County and Casalis in London. When his agent determined that Clive was retaining only 30 percent of his actual income due to dual taxation in the United States and the United Kingdom, Clive declined to seek American citizenship — the step that would have eliminated British taxes — out of concern that doing so might bar him from serving in the British army in the event of war.

Clive suffered from severe chronic alcoholism throughout his career, a condition visible to his co-stars, who observed him napping on set and, on occasion, so impaired that he required physical support during over-the-shoulder shots. He was also tormented by the ongoing medical threat of amputation of his long-damaged leg. He died on 25 June 1937 at the age of 37 from complications of tuberculosis. More than 300 mourners attended his funeral, and actor Peter Lorre served as one of the pallbearers. His remains were cremated and returned to England, and his cenotaph is located at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory.