Ernest Thesiger

Ernest Frederic Graham Thesiger, CBE (15 January 1879 - 14 January 1961) was an English stage and film actor. He is especially well-remembered for his performance as Doctor Septimus Pretorius in James Whale's film Bride of Frankenstein (1935).

Biography

Early life and career

The grandson of the 1st Lord Chelmsford, Thesiger was born in London, England and was the first cousin once removed of the explorer and author Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003), and the nephew of 2nd Lord Chelmsford, who, exactly a week after Ernest's birth, famously led his troops in battle against — and suffered a defeat at the hands of — a Zulu army at the Battle of Isandlwana.

Thesiger attended Marlborough College and the Slade School of Art with aspirations of becoming a painter, but quickly switched to drama, making his professional debut in a production of Colonel Smith in 1909. He enlisted in the armed forces at the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, allegedly hoping to be assigned to a Scottish regiment because he wanted to wear a kilt, but was wounded in the field and sent home. (At a dinner party shortly after his return, someone asked him what it had been like in France, to which he is supposed to have responded "Oh, my dear, the noise! and the people!") In 1917, he married Janette Mary Fernie Ranken (1877-1970), sister of his close friend and fellow Slade graduate William Bruce Ellis Ranken. In her biography of Thesiger's friend, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Hilary Spurling suggests that Thesiger and Janette wed largely out of their mutual adoration of William, who shaved his head when he learned of the engagement. Another source states more explicitly that Thesiger made no secret of his homosexuality.