Eugene Borden

Eugene Borden, born Élysée Eugène Prieur-Bardin on March 21, 1897, in Paris, France, was a French-American actor whose career spanned five decades across Broadway, Hollywood film, and television. He immigrated to the United States in 1914 at the age of seventeen and entered the film industry by 1917, making an early appearance in Christy Cabanne's The Slacker. He died on July 2, 1971, and is buried at Woodlawn Memorial Cemetery in Santa Monica, California. During his final years he resided at the Motion Picture Home in Woodland Hills, California.

Borden's stage work in New York occurred between 1918 and 1922. He appeared in The Better 'Ole, a musical comedy that ran for more than 350 performances during the 1918–19 season, and in The French Doll, a play that followed in 1922.

His film career encompassed more than 160 feature films, in addition to shorts, serials, and television appearances. During the silent era he appeared in George D. Baker's Revelation (1918), Blue Blood (1925) directed by Scott R. Dunlap, and the 1928 adaptation of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes directed by Malcolm St. Clair. Many of his roles across his career were uncredited, frequently portraying characters in service occupations such as headwaiters, porters, pursers, and coachmen.

Borden continued working steadily into the sound era, accumulating credits in a number of prominent productions. In the 1930s he appeared in Henry King's Marie Galante (1934) starring Spencer Tracy, the comedy Wife vs. Secretary (1936) with Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, and Myrna Loy, the romantic comedy Café Metropole (1937) with Tyrone Power and Loretta Young, the Sonja Henie vehicle Happy Landing (1938), and the 1939 version of The Three Musketeers starring Don Ameche and the Ritz Brothers.

His work in the 1940s included a featured role in The Mark of Zorro (1940) alongside Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, and Basil Rathbone. He also appeared in the screwball comedy The Lady is Willing (1942) with Fred MacMurray and Marlene Dietrich, The Song of Bernadette (1945), and the Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall film To Have and Have Not, in which he played the Quartermaster. Additional credits from that decade include The Razor's Edge (1946) with Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney, Gilda (1946) with Rita Hayworth, The Bishop's Wife (1947) with Cary Grant, Loretta Young, and David Niven — in which he played Michel, the owner of a French restaurant — and the 1949 musical On the Town starring Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra.

Among his most notable roles was that of Georges Mattieu, the landlord of the characters played by Gene Kelly and Oscar Levant, in the 1951 musical An American in Paris. Other significant 1950s credits include All About Eve (1950) with Bette Davis and Anne Baxter, the Bob Hope comedy My Favorite Spy, Howard Hawks' The Big Sky (1952) with Kirk Douglas, Anthony Mann's The Far Country (1955) with James Stewart, To Catch a Thief (1955) with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, Billy Wilder's The Spirit of St. Louis (1957) with James Stewart, and the 1958 horror film The Fly with Vincent Price.

Borden remained active into the 1960s, appearing in Can-Can (1960) with Frank Sinatra and Shirley MacLaine, Take Her, She's Mine (1963) with James Stewart and Sandra Dee, and the Jerry Lewis and Tony Curtis comedy Boeing, Boeing (1965). His final theatrical film was the 1966 spy comedy Our Man Flint starring James Coburn.

Alongside his film work, Borden appeared on numerous television programs during the 1950s and 1960s, including My Little Margie, Climax!, The Millionaire, The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, Have Gun – Will Travel, Perry Mason, The Twilight Zone, Combat!, The Farmer's Daughter, Don't Call Me Charlie!, and Rawhide. His last screen performance came in 1966 on the television series Run for Your Life.