Mystery History - Sydney Greenstreet

It's the birthday of actor Sydney Greenstreet, born December 27, 1879 in Kent, England.  One of eight children, he left England as a young man for colonial Ceylon to seek his fortune, but failed as a business man. Once back in England, he took acting lessons for something to do, and soon became a star on the stage. His first appearance in 1902 was as the villain in a production of Sherlock Holmes.

For decades he was a successful stage actor, first in England and then in the United States. But it was as an actor in Hollywood that he is best remembered. John Houston cast him as Kasper Gutman, known as "the fat man" in the film The Maltese Falcon. Along with his cohort in crime, Joel Cairo (played by Peter Lorre), the pair sought an elusive jewel encrusted statue worth a fortune. Their search pitted them against Sam Spade, played by Humphrey Bogart. The movie was a critical and financial success, and it established Greenstreet as a character actor who would go on to play the villain in nearly two dozen films.  His weight (nearly 300 pounds) and his piercing hawk-like eyes, gave him an ominous presence, and his stage acting experience allowed him to deliver lines that became classic quotes among fans of film noir.

After his film debut he went on to star in numerous films recognized as classics today, including Casablanca, Passage to Marseille, The Mask of Dimitrios, and The Verdict. In all he made 24 films in a Hollywood career that lasted only eight years. Yet his impact has been remarkable. He was the perfect villain, a man who spoke politely and with a rich vocabulary, and yet could be ruthless. He was often paired with Peter Lorre, with whom he made nine films. Greenstreet even helped inspire the alien villain in Star Wars. When receiving instructions from George Lucas on how to create Jabba the Hut, the designer thought of Sidney Greenstreet.  It was a comparison Greenstreet would have appreciated.


"Talking’s something you can’t do judiciously unless you keep in practice, and I’ll tell you right out that I’m a man who likes talking to a man that likes to talk."

- Kasper Gutman, The Maltese Falcon

Mystery History - Peter Lorre Born Today

It's the birthday of actor Peter Lorre, born June 26, 1904 in Slovakia. His real name was László Löwenstein, but a stage manager changed it to Peter Lorre. He started his film career in Germany, where Fritz Lang cast him as a serial killer in the movie M. The film was an instant success and it propelled Lorre to stardom. The fame had a drawback. Lorre would be forever cast as a criminal type. Needless to say, he made the most of it.

After the Nazis came to power, he left Germany and headed to the United States. Resourceful and determined, he was cast in Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much even though he could barely speak English (he convinced the director that he was fluent in the language). He played a killer again in Stranger On The Third Floor, one of the first movies now considered as film noir.

After numerous B movies, including a stint as Charlie Chan, he was paired with Humphrey Bogart and Sydney Greenstreet in The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. These performances, which featured his charm as well as his sinister side, would help cement his reputation as a genius actor.

"Do you think we should drive a stake through his heart, just in case?"

              - Peter Lorre, speaking to Vincent Price at the funeral of Bela Lugosi

Writers Born Today - Dashiell Hammett

It's the birthday of Dashiell Hammett, born 120 years ago today on May 27th 1894 in St Mary's County, Maryland. One of the finest writers of the 20th century, he invented the hard-boiled detective genre and inspired an entire generation of mystery writers. Raymond Chandler said of his prose, "He did over and over again what only the best writers can ever do at all. He wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before". His work forced critics to treat mystery novels as a serious literary form. Red Harvest, his first novel, was named as one of the top novels written since 1923 by Time magazine (the publication's start).

In homage to his work, The International Association of Crime Writers has named an award after him. The Hammett Prize is given each year for "literary excellence in the field of crime-writing".

 He grew up in Philadelphia and left school at the age of 13 to work in a series of odd jobs. As a young man he worked for the Pinkerton Detective Agency as one of their operatives and later based much of his fiction on his work there.  As he put it, "All of my characters were based on people I've known personally, or known about".  He wrote much of his fiction while living in San Francisco after leaving Pinkerton's due to health problems. Many of his early stories found their way into the magazine Black Mask. It was here that Hammett perfected his style of the lone detective who stands up against an uncaring world, fortified by his personal sense of honor and a stiff drink.

Red Harvest was published in 1929 to immediate critical acclaim. It was quickly followed by The Dain Curse (1929), The Maltese Falcon (1930), and The Glass Key (1931). His last novel, The Thin Man, was published in 1934.

It was The Maltese Falcon which firmly established Hammett's reputation as a masterful writer, and was later turned into a movie three times, the last version starring Humphrey Bogart. Hollywood also filmed The Thin Man, and produced several film sequels.

Despite serving honorably in both world wars (he was 48 years old when he volunteered for service in World War II), Hammett was questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1953. He refused to answer questions about his associations with civil rights groups. Two years earlier he had gone to prison for refusing to answer questions about a fund which provided bail money for suspects in a political witch hunt.  For a time he was blacklisted and unable to work in Hollywood or publish. Today, however, all of his works are back in print. A collection of his early stories was published in 2005.

Many of the locations in his stories and novels can still be found in modern day San Francisco, and the home he lived in still exists. For a peek at where Hammett lived, check out this article by award winning writer Mark Coggins.

Dashiell Hammett died on January 10, 1961. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.


Update: A major collection of Hammett letters and photos has been acquired by the University of South Carolina and will be made available to scholars in the coming year. For more details, clickety-click here.