Martin Miller is a Actor born on 2 september 1899 at Kroměříž (Republique tcheque)
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Birth name Rudolph MullerBirth 2 september 1899 at Kroměříž (
Republique tcheque)
Death 26 august 1969 (at 69 years) at Innsbruck (
Austria)
Martin Miller, born Rudolph Muller (2 September 1899 – 26 August 1969) was a Czech character actor who played many small roles in British films and television series from the early 1940s until his death. He was best known for playing eccentric doctors, scientists and professors, although he played a wide range of small, obscure roles—including photographers, waiters, a pet store dealer, rabbis, a Dutch sailor and a Swiss tailor. On stage he was noted in particular for his parodies of Adolf Hitler and roles as Dr. Einstein in Arsenic and Old Lace and Mr. Paravinci in The Mousetrap.
Miller appeared in several notable films, including Squadron Leader X (1943), English Without Tears (1944), The Third Man (1949), The Gamma People (1956), Peeping Tom (1960), 55 Days at Peking (1963), The V.I.P.s (1963), The Pink Panther (1963), and The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964). His most substantial roles include George II of Great Britain in Bonnie Prince Charlie (1948) and Kublai Khan in the Doctor Who serial Marco Polo. In the 1960s, he appeared in several ITC Entertainment cult television programmes, including Ghost Squad, Danger Man, The Saint, The Avengers and The Prisoner. Biography
Miller was born Rudolph Muller in the Moravian city of Kroměříž, then known as Kremsier in Austria-Hungary, on 2 September 1899. He began a career as an actor working in Vienna in 1925 but fled Austria at the outbreak of World War II to escape the persecution of the Jews and reportedly arrived in London in 1940 to pursue a career in the British industry.
1940s
It wasn't until 1943 that Miller had a major role in a major film, playing Mr. Krohn in Lance Comfort's World War II spy drama Squadron Leader X, alongside Beatrice Varley and Ann Dvorak. This role was quickly followed by his first of many roles as a doctor, playing Doctor Novotny in Harold S. Bucquet's spy film The Adventures of Tartu. In 1944, Comfort hired him again to appear in his picture Hotel Reserve, about a hunt for a spy in a hotel in southern France just before World War II. Based on a novel by Eric Ambler, the film saw Miller appear alongside James Mason, Lucie Mannheim and Raymond Lovell. He then had a small role as Schmidt in Harold French's romantic comedy English Without Tears (1944) alongside Michael Wilding, Margaret Rutherford and Penelope Dudley-Ward.
In 1945, he played a morgue keeper in Vernon Sewell's thriller Latin Quarter and in 1946 played Professor Hansen alongside Robert Newton, Raymond Lovell, Guy Middleton, Muriel Pavlow and Herbert Lom in Lawrence Huntington's Night Boat to Dublin and a postman in Maclean Rogers's Woman to Woman opposite Douglass Montgomery, Joyce Howard and Adele Dixon. The film, a romance drama, was based on the play Woman to Woman by Michael Morton.
In 1947 he starred as a professor in Vernon Sewell's comedy The Ghosts of Berkeley Square opposite Robert Morley and Felix Aylmer. The film is an adaptation of the novel No Nightingales by Caryl Brahms and S. J. Simon, inspired by the enduring reputation of the property at 50 Berkeley Square as "the most haunted house in London". That year he also portrayed Dr. Hans Tautz in Anthony Kimmins's drama Mine Own Executioner opposite Burgess Meredith, Dulcie Gray and Michael Shepley. The film was entered into the 1947 Cannes Film Festival.
In 1948 he portrayed a police inspector in Terence Young's One Night with You, alongside Nino Martini, Patricia Roc (and a young Christopher Lee with a minor role) an uncredited role as an Italian waiter at the Savoy Hotel in The Blind Goddess and a role as George II of England in Anthony Kimmins's biopic Bonnie Prince Charlie about the Jacobite Risings in a cast which included David Niven (as Charles II), Margaret Leighton, Judy Campbell, Jack Hawkins, Morland Graham and Finlay Currie. In 1949, he appeared as Tony the Cafe Proprietor in Lawrence Huntington's Man on the Run, a customer in Jack Warner's The Huggetts Abroad, Leon Stolz in Arthur Crabtree's Don't Ever Leave Me alongside Petula Clark, Jimmy Hanley, Hugh Sinclair, Edward Rigby, and Anthony Newley and had uncredited roles as black marketeer Herr Schindler in I Was a Male War Bride and as a headwaiter in The Third Man.
1950s
In 1951, Miller played a pawnbroker in the TV movie The Angel Who Pawned Her Harp, had an uncredited role as a photographer in Joseph M. Newman's I'll Get You for This, played a Dutch seaman in Paul L. Stein's Counterblast alongside Robert Beatty, Mervyn Johns and Nova Pilbeam and played the character of Carlo Penezii in the segment "Gigolo and Gigolette" of the anthology film Encore, a film which was entered into the 1952 Cannes Film Festival. In 1952, Miller played a rabbi in the TV series Portrait by Rembrandt and a photographer in Where's Charley?.
In 1953 he starred in Emeric Pressburger's Twice Upon a Time alongside Hugh Williams, Elizabeth Allan, Yolande Larthe and Charmaine Larthe and The Genie and between 1953 and 1954 he appeared in two episodes of Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Presents. In 1954, Miller portrayed Dr. Brukmann in Front Page Story, Professor Hyman Pfumbaum in You Know What Sailors Are, Dr. Fergus in Mad About Men and Brodcynsky in To Dorothy a Son. In 1955, Miller played Iggy Pulitzer in George More O'Ferrall's The Woman for Joe opposite Diane Cilento and George Baker, a pet dealer in the television movie Mother Michel and Her Cat, a Swiss tailor in John Paddy Carstairs's comedy Man of the Moment alongside Norman Wisdom, Belinda Lee, Lana Morris and Jerry Desmonde, and had an uncredited role as a Bandleader at an alligator rally in An Alligator Named Daisy.
A busy year, in 1956, Miller portrayed a hotelkeeper in the It Started in Paris episode of Sailor of Fortune, and as Chella in the Festival of Fear episode of The Adventures of Aggie. He had an uncredited role in Jay Lewis's comedy The Baby and the Battleship, starring John Mills, Richard Attenborough and André Morell, and played Professor Topolski in Child in the House and Lochner in John Gilling's science fiction picture The Gamma People alongside Paul Douglas, Eva Bartok and Leslie Phillips. In 1957 he played he starred in Hugo Fregonese's World War II picture Seven Thunders about two British escaped prisoners of war, opposite Stephen Boyd, James Robertson Justice and Kathleen Harrison. He also portrayed Papa Kolinsky in the A Penn'orth of Allsorts episode of Dixon of Dock Green.
In 1958 he played Brunet in Maclean Rogers's drama Mark of the Phoenix, alongside Julia Arnall, Sheldon Lawrence and Anton Diffring. He also appeared twice as Nat Danziger in ITV Play of the Week in 1955 and 1958, appeared in three episodes of the BBC's Sunday Night Theatre, one in 1956 and two in 1959. He also appeared in three episodes of ITV Television Playhouse, in 1956, 1959 and 1960, the first of which he had again portrayed a rabbi in the episode Skipper Next to God. In 1959, Miller had an uncredited role as Kakky in Expresso Bongo under the director's helm of Val Guest, starred as Hendricks in Violent Moment, and as a doctor in the TV film Henry IV, He played Dr. Schrott in Anthony Asquith's Libel, starring alongside Olivia de Havilland, Dirk Bogarde, Paul Massie, Wilfrid Hyde-White and Robert Morley. The film's screenplay was written by Anatole de Grunwald and Karl Tunberg from a 1935 play of the same name by Edward Wooll. He also made an appearance in the TV series Armchair Theatre in the episode Light from a Star.
1960s–death
In 1960, Miller portrayed Piggy in Robert Siodmak The Rough and the Smooth opposite Tony Britton, William Bendix and Edward Chapman, Dr. Pfeiffer in the episode Twentieth Century Theatre: The Price of Freedom of the BBC Sunday Night Play and starred as Dr. Rosen in the psychological horror thriller Peeping Tom, directed by Michael Powell. The film, which saw Miller star alongside Carl Boehm, Moira Shearer, Anna Massey and Maxine Audley revolves around a serial killer who murders women while using a portable movie camera with a spike to record their dying expressions of terror. It was a highly controversial subject with themes of child abuse, sadomasochism and fetishism and the extremely harsh reception by critics effectively destroyed the director's career as a director in the United Kingdom. However, it attracted a cult following, and in later years, it has been re-evaluated and is now considered a masterpiece. In 1960, Miller also portrayed Stravros in the episode The Lovers of the series Danger Man and Dr. Samuel Odenheim in Otto Preminger's war film Exodus opposite Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, Ralph Richardson and Sal Mineo. In 1961 he made appearances in the television series Theatre 70 in the episode The Watchman of Saul and
as Hymie in Echo Four Two, in the episode There She Blows.
In 1962, Miller starred as Rossi in the Hammer Film Productions horror The Phantom of the Opera under the directorship of Terence Fisher, as Mr. Green in the episode Between the Balance Sheets of Dial RIX, as Dr. Steliz in the episode Blaze of Glory in Man of the World, as Papa Kadopolis in the episode The Marriage Broker of Zero One and as Braun
in the episode The Green Shoes of Ghost Squad.
In 1963, a particularly busy and high-status year, Miller featured as the man with the microscope in Ken Annakin's comedy The Fast Lady starring Stanley Baxter, James Robertson Justice, Leslie Phillips, Kathleen Harrison and Julie Christie, as Dr. Schroeder in Incident at Midnight, reprising this same character in the TV series The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre version and played Davidoff in the TV movie The Bergonzi Hand. He starred as Hugo Bergmann in the Samuel Bronston Productions-Allied Artists historical epic 55 Days at Peking, directed by Nicholas Ray and opposite Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, and David Niven. The film is a dramatization of the Battle of Peking during the Boxer Rebellion which took place in 1900 in China and received two Academy Award nominations for Dimitri Tiomkin (Best Song and Original Music Score). In 1963, Miller also appeared in another top picture, Anthony Asquith's The V.I.P.s in which he played Dr. Schwatzbacher in an all-star cast which included Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Louis Jourdan, Orson Welles and Margaret Rutherford, who won both the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Golden Globe in the same category for her performance in the film. The film was one of the biggest British MGM productions in years. According to the playwright Terence Rattigan, who wrote the screenplay, the film was based on the true story of Vivien Leigh's attempt to leave her husband Laurence Olivier and fly off with her lover Peter Finch, only to be delayed by a fog at Heathrow Airport. The team of director Asquith, producer Anatole de Grunwald and writer Rattigan were to produce another portmanteau film the following year entitled The Yellow Rolls-Royce, in which Miller also starred, albeit with a minor role as a head waiter. Again Miller was featured alongside prominent actors such as Rex Harrison, Jeanne Moreau, Ingrid Bergman, Shirley MacLaine and Omar Sharif. In 1963 he also played the photographer Pierre Luigi in the original Blake Edwards film The Pink Panther opposite Niven, Peter Sellars and Robert Wagner and all in the same year, he also starred as Mr. Smith in the TV series Espionage in the episode The Incurable One and Astolat in The Sentimental Agent in the episode A Little Sweetness and Light.
In 1964, Miller appeared as Professor Gruber in the science fiction horror picture Children of the Damned, had a stint playing Kublai Khan in two episodes of Doctor Who, Assassin at Peking and Mighty Kublai Khan, and also portrayed Dr. Zoren in the episode Fish on the Hook of Danger Man. He became an ITC productions regular from 1964 onwards, albeit with minor roles. He appeared in two episodes of The Saint, playing Jerome in the episode Jeannine (1964) and Mr. Justin in the episode The Smart Detective (1965) and played the role of Lazlo in two episodes of A Little Big Business in 1964 and 1965. In 1965 he portrayed Heinrich Miron in the The House of Bons Bons episode of The Third Man, had an uncredited role as Professor Spencer in The Avengers in the episode The Master Minds and had a role as Herman in the Christopher Miles comedy film Up Jumped a Swagman which also incidentally co-starred some ITC regulars such as Annette Andre and Ronald Radd.
In 1966, Miller appeared in the TV series Theatre 625 in the episode Focus, the The Baron in the episode Enemy of the State and as Dr. Heindrick in the series Adam Adamant Lives!, in the episode A Slight Case of Reincarnation. In 1967 he notably starred as Montross in The Forsyte Saga in the episode Portrait of Fleur and as a watchmaker in The Prisoner, in the episode It's Your Funeral. In 1969 he appeared in BBC Play of the Month, playing Professeur Vivier in the episode Maigret at Bay, the TV movie Mord nach der Oper, Dr. Israel Berg in the episode They Call Me Israel of the The Troubleshooters, Professor Pearson in the episode It's All Go... of Doctor in the House before making his last ever appearance portraying Dutrov in the series Department S.
He was booked for a role in The Last Valley, but while shooting on location in Innsbruck, died of a heart attack on 26 August 1969, aged 69.
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