George Brent

George Brent, born George Brendan Nolan on 15 March 1904 in Ballinasloe, County Galway, Ireland, was an Irish-American actor whose career spanned stage, film, and television. He died on 26 May 1979. His father, John J. Nolan, worked as a shopkeeper, and his mother, Mary, née McGuinness, was originally from Clonfad, Moore, County Roscommon. In September 1915, Brent and his younger sister Kathleen relocated to New York City to join their mother, who had separated from her husband and was already living in the United States.

In February 1921, Brent returned to Ireland during the Irish War of Independence and became involved with the Irish Republican Army. He also became connected with the Abbey Theatre during this period. He later claimed his IRA role was limited to serving as a courier for guerrilla leader Michael Collins, though a bounty was reportedly placed on his head by the British government. Researchers at Ballinasloe Life noted that the wartime records of three different men named George Nolan — Brent and two others from County Dublin and County Offaly — may have been conflated, which could account for inconsistencies in accounts of his birth year and activities between 1919 and 1922. Brent left Ireland, traveled through England to Canada, and returned to the United States in August 1921.

Having decided to pursue acting professionally, Brent made his Broadway debut in Guthrie McClintic's production of The Dover Road. Throughout the 1920s he appeared in numerous productions, including Abie's Irish Rose, on tour for two years, as well as Stella Dallas, Up in Mabel's Room, Elmer the Great, Seventh Heaven, White Cargo, and Lilac Time. He also operated several of his own stock companies, working at Elitch Theatre in Denver, Colorado in 1929, as well as in Rhode Island, Florida, and Massachusetts. In 1930, he appeared on Broadway in Love, Honor and Betray, a production in which Clark Gable also appeared.

That same year, Brent moved to Hollywood and made his first film, Under Suspicion, for 20th Century Fox. He followed it with supporting roles in Once a Sinner, Fair Warning, and Charlie Chan Carries On, all in 1931. At Universal he appeared in Ex-Bad Boy and The Homicide Squad, and at Mascot Pictures he took a role in the Rin Tin Tin serial The Lightning Warrior. Warner Bros. signed him in 1931, and his casting opposite Barbara Stanwyck in So Big! in 1932 established him as a leading man. That same year he appeared in The Rich Are Always with Us alongside Ruth Chatterton, whom he married in 1932, and the two subsequently appeared together in The Crash and, in 1933, in Lilly Turner and Female. Chatterton filed for divorce in September 1934.

At Warner Bros., Brent became particularly associated with Bette Davis, ultimately appearing in eleven films with her. Among the earliest were Front Page Woman and Special Agent, both in 1935, followed by The Golden Arrow in 1936. His most celebrated collaborations with Davis came in 1938 and 1939, when he appeared in Jezebel — in which Henry Fonda played Davis's primary love interest — and then in Dark Victory and The Old Maid, both directed by Edmund Goulding and both major commercial successes. His final film with Davis was In This Our Life in 1942.

Beyond his work with Davis, Brent appeared opposite a wide range of prominent actresses during his Warner Bros. years. He was borrowed by MGM to play leading man to Myrna Loy in Stamboul Quest in 1934 and to Greta Garbo in The Painted Veil the same year. He appeared with Ginger Rogers in In Person for RKO in 1935, with Madeleine Carroll in The Case Against Mrs. Ames in 1936, and with Olivia de Havilland in Gold Is Where You Find It in 1938 and Wings of the Navy in 1939. He also supported Kay Francis in multiple films, including The Keyhole, Living on Velvet, Stranded, The Goose and the Gander, and Secrets of an Actress. In 1937, Warner Bros. cast him in his first male-oriented production, the military drama Submarine D-1, alongside Pat O'Brien and Wayne Morris. Brent became an American citizen in November of that year.

During World War II, Brent, an accomplished pilot, attempted to enlist in the armed services but was turned away due to his age. He temporarily left film work to serve as a civilian flight instructor with the Civilian Pilot Training Program and later flew as a pilot with the US Coast Guard for the duration of the war. He also worked in radio during this period. His final film for Warner Bros., My Reputation — his fifth and last picture with Stanwyck — was filmed between November 1943 and January 1944 but was not released to general audiences until 1946.

After the war, Brent returned to acting as a freelance performer, though he did not regain his earlier level of popularity. He appeared opposite Hedy Lamarr in Experiment Perilous for RKO in 1944, starred alongside Joan Fontaine in The Affairs of Susan in 1945, and appeared with Claudette Colbert and Orson Welles in Tomorrow Is Forever in 1946. That same year he returned to RKO for The Spiral Staircase, which proved a significant success, and appeared with Lucille Ball in Lover Come Back at Universal.