Michael Wilding

ANECDOTE...

Wilding was once asked whether actors had any distinguishing features that set them apart from other human beings. "Without a doubt," he replied. "You can pick out actors by the glazed look that comes into their eyes when the conversation wanders away from themselves."

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE...

(1912–79)

Urbane British actor. Wilding was making a living as a commercial artist when, in 1933, he joined the art department of a London film studio. His good looks and dashing personality did not go unnoticed and soon Wilding embarked upon an acting career. He made his film bow in the Australian Pastorale (1933), then toted up an impressive list of British stage and screen credits. His most memorable screen appearances can be found in Sailors Three (1940), In Which We Serve (1942), Piccadilly Incident (1946), Spring in Park Lane (1947), and Hitchcock's Stage Fright (1950). From 1952 through 1957, Wilding was the husband of Elizabeth Taylor. Illness forced Michael Wilding to cut down his film appearances in the late '60s; his last assignment was an uncredited, non-speaking cameo in Lady Caroline Lamb (1972), which co-starred his fourth wife, Margaret Leighton.