Hume Cronyn

Hume Cronyn (1911-2003), Canadian American stage and motion-picture actor, screenwriter, and theater director, best known for his half-century acting partnership with his wife, Jessica Tandy. Born in London, Ontario, Cronyn was educated at McGill University in Montréal, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, and the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. Cronyn and Tandy were married in 1942.

Cronyn was a decade-long Broadway veteran by the time he made his film debut in Shadow of a Doubt (directed by Alfred Hitchcock, 1943), playing a mousy next-door neighbor who enjoys dreaming up the perfect murder. With his wiry build, sharp elocution, and distinctive features, Cronyn credibly acted in a wide range of roles in Lifeboat (1944), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), Brute Force (1947), and People Will Talk (1951). Collaborations with Tandy included the Broadway productions The Fourposter (1951), The Gin Game (which he directed, 1978), and Foxfire (1982); the films The Seventh Cross (for which Cronyn was nominated for an Academy Award, 1944), Cocoon (1985), and Cocoon: The Return (1988); and the television series “The Marriage” (1954). Cronyn also appeared in the motion picture Sunrise at Campobello (1960), about the life of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and as Polonius in a filmed version of Hamlet (1964), which starred Richard Burton in the title role.

In addition, Cronyn enjoyed long-running collaborations with several notable filmmakers, including Alfred Hitchcock, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and Alan J. Pakula. Along with his acting roles in Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt and Lifeboat, Cronyn helped Hitchcock write Rope (1948) and Under Capricorn (1949). Cronyn appeared in Mankiewicz's People Will Talk, Cleopatra (1963), and There Was a Crooked Man (1970). With Pakula, Cronyn appeared in The Parallax View (1974), Rollover (1981), and The Pelican Brief (1993).

Cronyn and Tandy were both awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1990. In 1994, the year Tandy died, she and Cronyn won the first Tony Award for lifetime theatrical achievement. The couple’s last film together, Camilla, was released the same year. Cronyn appeared in the film Marvin’s Room (1996) and several television movies during his final years.