Oscar Profile #277: Donald Crisp

Born July 27, 1882 in London, England, George William (Donald) Crisp was one of eight children. Educated at Oxford, University, he emigrated to America in 1906. Spotted singing in concert on the ship, he was immediately offered a job by opera impresario John C. Fisher. He spent his first year in New York in Grand Opera and the second year as a stage director. He then became interested in theatre and worked as a stage director for George M. Cohan. While traveling with one of Cohan’s shows, he met film producer-director D.W. Griffith in 1910 and began acting in Griffith’s short films in 1911. He augmented his acting by directing for Griffith beginning in 1914. He would eventually direct 70 films.

Crisp’s most famous silent roles were as Ulysses S. Grant in Griffith’s landmark 1915 film, The Birth of a Nation and as Lillian Gish’s father in Griffith’s 1919 classic, Broken Blossoms. He continued acting in silent films through 1929’s The Pagan and Trent’s Last Case. His last film as a director was his only talkie, 1930’s The Runaway Bride. From then on, he worked exclusively as an actor, albeit as one of the busiest character men in Hollywood.

Crisp was kept busy in the 1930s in such prestige films as Red Dust, The Little Minister, What Every Woman Knows, Oil for the Lamps of China, Mutiny on the Bounty, Mary of Scotland, The Charge of the Light Brigade, The Life of Emile Zola, Jezebel, The Dawn Patrol, Wuthering Heights, The Old Maid and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. In 1940 and early 1941 he had major roles in Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet, Brother Orchid, The Sea Hawk, City for Conquest, Knute Rockne, All-American and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He finished out 1941 with his Oscar winning role in How Green Was My Valley.

The actor continued to appear in important roles in important films throughout the 1940s and 50s. Among his best remembered performances of those years were in Lassie Come Home, The Uninvited, The Adventures of Mark Twain, National Velvet, The Valley of Decision, Bright Leaf, Prince Valiant, The Long Gray Line, The Man from Laramie, The Last Hurrah and Saddle the Wind.

In 1960 Crisp once again gave memorable performances in A Dog of Flanders and Pollyanna. In 1961 he had top billing in Greyfriars Bobby and played his last role in 1963’s Spencer’s Mountain.

Donald Crisp had been married twice, both marriages ending in divorce. He had no children. He died May 25, 1974 at the age of 91.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY (1941), directed by John Ford

The highlight of Crisp’s acting career was his Welsh coal mining father in Ford’s 1941 Oscar winner for which the actor was also rewarded. Long established as one of the screen’s most reliable character actors, his performance here transcends them all. The voiceover relating to his character can also be applied to the actor and his long held position as one of Hollywood’s greatest: “Men like my father cannot die. They are with me still, real in memory as they were in flesh, loving and beloved forever. How green was my valley then.” Thanks to the magic of the movies, it’s evergreen.

THE VALLEY OF DECISION (1945), directed by Tay Garnett

Crisp was on the opposite side of the argument as Gregory Peck’s father in this Pittsburgh set drama in which his housemaid Greer Garson’s father Lionel Barrymore is the leader of the striking miners. The actor who famously played Lillian Gish, Helen Hayes, Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis’ fathers on his screen was fresh from playing Elizabeth Taylor and Angela Lansbury’s father in National Velvet. His family here, in addition to Peck, included Gladys Cooper as his wife, Jessica Tandy as his daughter-in-law and Dean Stockwell as his grandson.

THE MAN FROM LARAMIE (1955), directed by Anthony Mann

Crisp had one of his great late career roles as the Lear-like cattle baron going blind literally as well as figuratively as his evil son Alex Nicol and trusted foreman Arthur Kennedy makes life hell for hero James Stewart. Aline MacMahon as the plucky ranch woman who is Crisp’s only friend all but steals the show. Crisp was also unforgettable this year as the beloved father of Tyrone Power and father-in-law of Maureen O’Hara in John Ford’s underrated The Long Gray Line about the salt-of-the-earth Irish immigrant who becomes a fixture of the United States Military Academy at West Point for fifty years.

THE LAST HURRAH (1958), directed by John Ford

Ford’s “old man’s picture” from Edwin O’Connor’s award-winning novel was a fictionalized account of the last days of Boston’s fabled Mayor Curley. Spencer Tracy had one of his best late career roles as Curley surrogate Frank Skeffington. The film provides its colorful supporting cast with strong roles as well. The conceit is that Tracy and Pat O’Brien who were both 58 at the time were supposed to have grown up with James Gleason and Donald Crisp who were both 76 at the time. Crisp as the sitting Boston Cardinal owns every minute he’s on screen as does 80-year-old Jane Darwell as the old lady whose pastime is attending Irish wakes.

SPENCER’S MOUNTAIN (1984), directed by Delmer Daves

Based on Earl Hamner, Jr.’s novel of the same name which became the basis for the TV series The Waltons, Daves moves the locale from Virginia’s Appalachian Mountains to Wyoming’s Grand Tetons. The cast is headed by Henry Fonda and Maureen O’Hara as the parents of nine children. The plot centers around the impending graduation of the eldest son and his plans to go to college. James MacArthur plays the boy, Mimsy Farmer his love interest. Crisp is the family patriarch, who ends his long career in style, going out in his most memorable death scene since How Green Was My Valley.