Edward Fielding

Edward Fielding (March 19, 1875 – January 10, 1945) was an American stage and film actor born in Brooklyn, New York. Over the course of a career spanning four decades, he accumulated credits across Broadway, London's West End, silent film, and Hollywood.

Fielding's Broadway career ran from 1905 to 1939 and encompassed nearly 40 productions, frequently in leading roles. He performed alongside prominent stage actresses of the era including Olga Nethersole, Grace George, Ethel Barrymore, and Laura Hope Crews. His tall, dignified bearing made him particularly well suited to the works of Henrik Ibsen, with which he became especially associated. Broadway credits from this period include Brown Danube, Eye on the Sparrow, Merely Murder, The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse, and Othello, among others. In addition to his American stage work, Fielding spent time performing in London.

His screen work began during the silent era, with a notable appearance as Dr. Watson opposite William Gillette in Sherlock Holmes (1916). After concluding his Broadway career in 1939, Fielding relocated to Hollywood and went on to appear in more than 80 films. He typically took on bit parts and supporting roles, often cast as doctors, officials, judges, priests, or butlers. Alfred Hitchcock cast Fielding in four films between 1940 and 1945, and his most recognized performance in that collaboration was the role of Frith, the elderly butler, in Rebecca (1940). Additional film appearances during this period included Kitty Foyle (1940) with Ginger Rogers, Billy Wilder's American directorial debut The Major and the Minor (1942), in which he played the father of the characters portrayed by Rita Johnson and Diana Lynn, and In This Our Life (1942), starring Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland.

Fielding's wife, Elizabeth Sherman Clark (1883–1959), was a Metropolitan Opera star. The couple had one child. Their papers, covering the years 1876 to 1975, are held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Fielding died on January 10, 1945, of a heart attack suffered while mowing his lawn, two months before he would have turned 70.