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“See – one side of my face is gentle and kind, incapable of anything but love of my fellow man. The other side, the other profile, is cruel and predatory and evil, incapable of anything but the lusts and dark passions. It all depends on which side of my face is turned toward you or the camera. It all depends on which side faces the moon at the ebb of the tide.”

So spoke Lionel Atwill who, with the aid of his Jekyll/Hyde profiles, happily metamorphosed from one of the top stars of the NY stage to become one of the screen’s most celebrated menaces. After a sterling career on stage romancing such legends as Nazimova. Katharine Cornell and Helen Hayes, Atwill embraced a cinema image of robbing morgues, leering at heroines and vitalizing monsters. With gleaming eyes and chilling precise diction, Atwill became a most charming movie villain, accoladed by the NY “Times” as “almost too convincing for comfort.”

Atwill deserted the stage for films when the latter were tagged a “bastard art,” and it’s intriguing that he was fascinated with the sordid and bizarre – a taste that finally lost him respect he had earned as one of the performing arts’ great talents.

Lionel Alfred William Atwill was born in Croydon, England, March 1, 1885. Of a wealthy family he was educated by private tutors and at London’s Mercer School. His original vocation was architecture. He later told “Motion Picture Classic”: “I happened to come from a family unconnected with theatricals. My grandfather was an architect and I was properly educated and played cricket like every other English boy.” Some friends persuaded the handsome Lionel to try acting: as a lark, he took to the hoards in a school production. Atwill soon informed his displeased family that he would foresake drafting for greasepaint.

He made his professional bow at the Garrick in ’05, playing a footman in THE WALLS OF JERICHO. He recalled: “For five years I toured the provinces, working like a dog for that success which would give me an opening in London theatres, the goal of every English actor’s ambition.” His training included parts in Shakespeare, Shaw, Ibsen et al: his looks, voice and magnetism soon won him meaty roles.

After a tour of Australia (’10-’12) his first West End success came in March, ’12, playing Arthur Preece in MILESTONES for over 600 performances. Subsequent hits included POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL, THE LITTLE MINISTER and YEARS OF DISCRETION.

In ’15, the legendary Lillie Langtry was preparing for a tour of vaudeville in the USA. She “coaxed” Atwill into joining her as co-star, and he made his American debut in October, ’15, playing opposite sexagenarian Langtry in MRS. THOMPSON AND ASHES. After a lengthy engagement with her, in ’17 Atwill opened in NY in THE LODGER, playing the title character (based on Lowndes’ novel about Jack the Ripper.) The NY “Times” reported: “Well enough played except by one Lionel Atwill and one Phyllis Relph… Atwill possesses a fine, dynamic vitality, but drives in his every point as if he were hound that no defective in the last row of the gallery should miss one of them.” The critic had doubly insulted Atwill; Phyllis Relph was his wife, whom he had wed in ’13.

He next appeared in EVE’S DAUGHTER, with Billie Burke; L’ELEVATION and THE INDESTRUCTIBLE WIFE. While none was a box-office success, all won him such praise that Nazimova chose him as her leading man in a season of Ibsen. He starred opposite her in THE WILD DUCK, HEDDA GABLER and A DOLL HOUSE. Producer David Belasco then signed Atwill to star in TIGER! TIGER! in ’18; by this time he had scored so well in NY it was rumored King George V might knight him.

During the same period he had made several silent pictures in NY: Paramount’s EVE’S DAUGHTER (’18) with Billie Burke, Pathe’s FOR SALE (’18) and Paramount’s THE MARRIAGE PRICE (’19) with Elsie Ferguson. These won him the title of “The Exquisite Villain,” with Atwill stating in “Motion Picture Classic”: “America offers a greater sense of promise than any other country. I prefer London for one reason only. In London the actor is accepted by the best society; over here he is considered more or less a bounder.” He added: “I honestly think pictures have possibilities, but not until some of these old-fashioned ideas are combed out of them. For instance, to the picture director a character is either a hero who is all good, or a villain who is all bad… I, for one, will never play in pictures again until I am assured the director is broadminded enough to present a villain who has lovable qualities, or a hero who has a few weaknesses.” It was a peculiar remark coming from a man who, a little more than a decade later, would become one of the screen’s most black-souled scoundrels.

In late ’19, he was divorced by Phyllis Relph: the marriage had produced a son, John Anthony.

In Dec., ’20 Atwill achieved theatrical celebrity playing the title role in Belasco’s DEBURAU, the great French pantomimist. In the cast was Fred Bickle, who later became Atwill’s understudy and was to he renamed Fredric March; and Elsie McKay, who in early ’20 had become the second Mrs. Atwill. During DEBURAU’s run Atwill, in an Actor’s Benefit, played Hamlet to Laurette Taylor’s Ophelia; it was considered the evening’s highlight.

“I learned from that great old man a meticulous passion for detail in everything I do.” said Atwill of Belasco, who also starred him in THE GRAND DUKE (’21) and THE COMEDIAN (’23). Between plays he toured in vaudeville, also starring in two NY-made films. Goldwyn’s THE HIGHEST BIDDER and Pioneer’s INDISCRETION, both ’21 releases.

In ’24 Atwill triumphed with Katharine Cornell in THE OUTSIDER. Next he starred opposite Helen Hayes in Shaw’s CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA in ’25.

He continued to live lavishly in his manor on Long Island, but in late ’25, when rehearsing for the play, DEEP IN THE WOODS, he began to suspect his wife Elsie of having an affair with actor Max Montesole. Atwill’s associate, Claude Beerbohm, told the NY “Daily Mirror” that Atwill spoke of “shooting Montesole.” What actually occurred is that Atwill invaded the “love nest” with detectives, and then sued for divorce.

Through ’26-’27 Atwill continued to win acclaim on the stage in various productions, as an actor and director. On Mar. 8, ’28, he played the title role in NAPOLEON and again made headlines when he abused the critics from the stage when their reviews doomed the run. The same year he appeared on radio station WGY in a presentation of DEBURAU and also in two films for Fox – a one-reeler entitled LIONEL ATWILL IN THE ACTOR’S ADVICE TO HIS SON, and a two-reeler. THE WHITE-FACED FOOL. In ’29 he joined Fannie Brice and Leon Errol in Earl Carroll’s musical FIORETTA, winning the best review.

In June, ’30, Atwill was accepted by US socialites when he wed the former Mrs. Douglas MacArthur (she had married the famed soldier in ’22 and divorced him in ’29). Born Henrietta Louise Cromwell, the 36 year-old bridewas one of the most beautiful, vivacious and witty socialites of the Wash., DC set.

Later in ’30 Atwill returned to Broadway to direct Basil Rathhone in a comedy, A KISS OF IMPORTANCE. This was followed in ’31 by Atwill starring in THE SILENT WITNESS, a drama that weaved sex, murder and father love by having the father (Atwill) perjure himself to save his son from the charge of murdering a whore. After 80 performances, the company trekked to Los Angeles where Atwill made his first Hollywood film. Not surprisingly it was a movie version of the play. THE SILENT WITNESS, produced by Fox (’32 release). His portrayal of a man who rationalizes courtroom perjury ironically foreshadowed a real-life drama a decade later.

Meanwhile, ’31’s DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN, both from Universal, were bonanzas. Other studios were preparing properties to cash in on “horror.” When Atwill decided to make another film, it was WB/First National’s DOCTOR X, an early Technicolor chiller about cannibalistic murders. Directed by Michael Curtiz, Atwill played the very guilty-looking Dr. Xavier, with Fay Wray as the screaming heroine. Lee Tracy as the sassy reporter/hero, and Preston Foster as the madman who kills while coated in “synthetic flesh.” In his book, “Hollywood in the ’30’s”, John Baxter calls DOCTOR X “one of the greatest of the classic horror films, incorporating most of the key Germanic elements: necrophilia, dismemberment and rape.” The picture was a great success. Atwill, far from resenting the tag of “horror” actor, surprised everyone by delighting in it. While relatively benign in Doctor X, he contributed some perversely startling moments, particularly when he appeared to he sexually aroused by the sight of Foster removing his artificial limb.

When DOCTOR X opened. Atwill returned to NY only to jolt the theatre world by announcing plans to relocate in the cinema colony. He claimed to recognize the movies as the emerging art form. “The theatre type of play is not going to he the mode,” said Atwill, opining that “adult entertainment,” with the accent on adventure, would appeal more powerfully to the public’s fancy, as well as his own. He also found the difference in acting styles between theatre and film intriguing: “There are two different techniques. That is why some stage actors are not good in the pictures and some movie stars fail on the stage. It is easier for the former to learn the other mode than the latter.” The NY “Times,” shocked that a stage star would willingly defect to films, devoted two consecutive Sunday columns to his desertion.

In Hollywood, Atwill’s eyes dilated in madness in Majestic’s ’33 THE VAMPIRE BAT, as he created “life” in his laboratory and again gave Fay Wray reasons to scream. Next, he drove Phillips Holmes to suicide in MGM’s SECRET OF MADAME BLANCHE. But the shocker that made Atwill a major movie villain was Warner Bros.’ MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM, a Technicolor classic which only recently surfaced after years of being “lost.” Atwill portrayed Ivan Igor, victim of a wax museum fire leaving him with a monstrously scarred face and an insanely vengeful mind. By night he bares his hideous face and scavenges the morgues for bodies that he coats in wax and displays as historical personages. Michael Curtiz directed, with Glenda Farrell and the ever-beleaguered Fay Wray as Atwill’s costars.

The scene of this thriller featured Miss Wray’s resistance to Atwill’s offer to award her immortality as a wax-coated Marie Antoinette. “My dear, why are you so pitifully afraid? Immortality has been the dream, the inspiration of mankind through the ages. And I am going to give you immortality!” She pounds his face and it cracks, revealing monstrosity. The celebrated punch was succeeded by an inimitable Wray scream. Atwill was delighted with the film, though he commented: “They fooled me in the Wax Museum thing, or rather they let me fool myself. I’d been practicing before a mirror for weeks, learning how to keep my face as still as a board and just wiggle my jaws in talking, eyes set and staring – a grand effect. But then in the finished picture, I looked so much like a stone image they had to cut all those close-ups for fear of giving away the fact that my face was supposed to he a wax mask.” Actually a few of these close-ups are in the final part, and are startlingly effective.

MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM was long thought lost, particularly since its remake, HOUSE OF WAX (with Vincent Price) emerged from Warners in ’53. In ’70 a print was found in Jack Warner’s private collection and has since joined the repertoire of late evening show-shockers.

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