Gregory Gaye

Gregory Gaye, born Grigoriy Grigoryevich Ge on October 10, 1900, in St. Petersburg, Russia, was a Russian-American character actor whose career spanned stage, film, and television across more than five decades. The son of an actor, Gaye served as a cadet in the Imperial Russian Navy before beginning his stage career in Europe and the Orient. Following the Russian Revolution, he emigrated to the United States in 1923. He was the uncle of actor George Gaynes.

Gaye established himself on Broadway between 1932 and 1940, appearing in the musical Through the Years, the plays Dinner at Eight and Christopher Comes Across, and The Burning Deck. These stage credits ran alongside a prolific film career in which he accumulated small roles in over a hundred movies, frequently cast as European aristocrats, diplomats, and later, as World War II approached, Nazi figures.

His screen debut came in 1928 as a bit player in the John Barrymore silent film Tempest, set during the Russian Revolution. His first credited role followed in 1929, when he played Prince Ordinsky in the Will Rogers comedy They Had to See Paris. Gaye went on to appear in two additional Rogers films, Young as You Feel and Handy Andy. Also in 1929, he had a bit part in John Ford's The Black Watch starring Victor McLaglen. The following year he played Baslikoff, a suave violinist pursuing Gloria Swanson, in the romantic comedy What a Widow, and appeared as Vologuine in Victor Fleming's Renegades alongside Myrna Loy and Bela Lugosi. In 1932, he played Rudolph Kammerling in Once in a Lifetime, a comedy set during Hollywood's transition from silent films to talkies.

Throughout the mid-1930s, Gaye continued to secure notable supporting roles. He appeared as Mr. Kolinoff in Warner Bros.' British Agent starring Leslie Howard in 1934, and two years later played Baron Kurt Von Obersdorf in the acclaimed drama Dodsworth, starring Walter Huston and Mary Astor. That same year he portrayed Count Raul Du Rienne in Under Your Spell and Enrico Borelli in the mystery Charlie Chan at the Opera opposite Boris Karloff. In 1937, he played pianist Dmitri Shekoladnikoff in Mama Steps Out, German Captain Freymann in Lancer Spy with George Sanders and Peter Lorre, and Count Frederic Brekenski in Warner Bros.' Tovarich starring Claudette Colbert, Charles Boyer, and Basil Rathbone. The following year brought roles as an aristocratic count in Love, Honor and Behave and as Popoff in Too Hot to Handle with Clark Gable and Myrna Loy.

In 1939, Gaye played Count Georges De Remi in Paris Honeymoon starring Bing Crosby, Vitray in 20th Century Fox's The Three Musketeers with Don Ameche, and exiled Count Alexis Rakonin in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Oscar-nominated Ninotchka starring Greta Garbo. As the United States entered the war era, his casting shifted from aristocrats toward Nazi and wartime characters. In 1941 he appeared in They Dare Not Love with George Brent and Paul Lukas, I Wake Up Screaming with Betty Grable and Victor Mature, and the war drama Flight Lieutenant with Pat O'Brien and Glenn Ford.

In 1942, Gaye played Nazi spy Feldon in Columbia's serial Secret Code and a Nazi named Karl in the comedy Fall In. That same year, at age 41, he appeared in Casablanca as an official of Hitler's Reichsbank who attempts to enter Rick's back-room casino but is turned away by the doorman Abdul. His brief exchange with Humphrey Bogart's Rick Blaine, in which he protests his exclusion and threatens to report the matter to the Angrif before storming off, became one of his most recognized screen moments.

Gaye's roles grew smaller and more frequently uncredited through the late 1940s and into the 1950s. Notable appearances during this period included The Purple Heart in 1944 with Dana Andrews and Richard Conte, the spy thriller The Conspirators the same year, and seven films in 1945 alone, among them Paris Underground and Cornered with Dick Powell. He appeared in The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer with Cary Grant in 1947, and in 1952 played Paul Shushaldin in Raoul Walsh's The World in His Arms with Gregory Peck and Ann Blyth. In 1955 he portrayed an ex-Nazi mad scientist in Columbia's science-fiction horror film Creature with the Atom Brain, and in 1958 played Vladimir Klinkoff in Auntie Mame starring Rosalind Russell.

Later career highlights included a role as casino owner Freeman in Ocean's Eleven in 1960 alongside Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr., and a part in Blue Hawaii in 1961 as the father of Joan Blackman's character opposite Elvis Presley. In 1962 he appeared in Vincente Minnelli's The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and portrayed General Erwin Rommel in Hitler, starring Richard Basehart. He played a Russian reporter in The Prize with Paul Newman and Edward G. Robinson in 1963, the Soviet U.N. ambassador in the 1966 Batman film, and had a small uncredited role in Alfred Hitchcock's Topaz in 1969. His final film appearance came in 1979, when, at age 79, he played the Soviet Premier in the science-fiction disaster film Meteor.

On television, Gaye played the evil ruler in the 1953 series Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe and made guest appearances on numerous programs between 1954 and 1970, including five appearances on The F.B.I. He married his second wife, Frances Lee, in 1944; she predeceased him in 1985. Gaye died on August 23, 1993, in Studio City, California, and was cremated, with his ashes held privately.