Georges Metaxa

Georges Metaxa, born George-Radu Metaxa on 11 September 1899 in Bucharest, Romania, was a Romanian-American singer and stage and film actor. The son of Nicholas Metaxa and Emilie Theophilatos, he was recognized for his crooning high baritone voice and frequently cast as genteel antagonists. He died on 8 December 1950.

Before pursuing a career in entertainment, Metaxa worked as a civil servant, rising to the position of principal private secretary to the Romanian Ministry of Agriculture. In 1926 he emigrated to London to pursue musical comedy, and the following year he made his first recording, a Romanian folk song titled "Mandrulita." His stage career began after he engaged with producer Charles B. Cochran, earning his first theatrical billing in John Hastings Turner's 1929 musical revue Wake Up and Dream. He subsequently appeared in Noël Coward's operetta Bitter Sweet, continuing to record in London through 1931, when he recorded Ray Noble's "Goodnight Sweetheart" before relocating to New York with the Bitter Sweet touring company.

Metaxa's Broadway career spanned 1931 to 1934. He appeared in the musical The Cat and the Fiddle and the play Twenty-five Dollars an Hour, and he starred in the musical Revenge with Music. His first film role came in 1931 with Secrets of a Secretary. In 1936 he appeared opposite Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in Swing Time, portraying Astaire's romantic rival, a bandleader named Ricky Romero.

Metaxa's personal life included three marriages. He was married to Helene Valoary, with whom he had one daughter, until their divorce in July 1933. Two months later, in September 1933, he married 18-year-old actress Margaret Stafford. In April 1934, the couple was involved in an automobile accident in Miami; Stafford was killed and Metaxa was gravely injured. In 1946 he married Byrnece Macfadden Muckerman, daughter of American publisher and bodybuilder Bernarr Macfadden.

In his later years, Metaxa's declining health forced him to turn down roles, including the leading part in a London production of South Pacific. He died suddenly of a heart attack on 8 December 1950 at a hotel in Monroe, Louisiana, while he and his wife were traveling from Europe back to their home in Beverly Hills following a seven-month trip abroad.