Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude McDowall (September 17, 1928–October 3, 1998) was a British actor.

Early life

McDowall was born in London in Herne Hill to a Scottish father, Thomas Andrew McDowall, and an Irish mother, Winifred. Both his parents were enthusiastic about the theatre. He also had a sister, Virginia.
McDowall made his first film appearance at the age of ten. It was as "Huw" in How Green Was My Valley (1941) that he made his name, and he appeared in many other films as a child actor, including The White Cliffs of Dover (1944) and Lassie Come Home (1943) where he co-starred (in what would be one of many occasions) opposite lifelong friend Elizabeth Taylor.


Career

McDowall was one of the few child actors to continue his career successfully into adulthood, but it was usually in character roles, notably in four of the five original Planet of the Apes movies (1968 – 1973) and the TV series that followed. Other film appearances included Cleopatra (1963), It! (1966), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974), Class of 1984 (1982), Fright Night (1985) and Overboard (1987). He also appeared on stage and was a frequent guest star on television, appearing on such series as the original Twilight Zone, The Carol Burnett Show, Fantasy Island and Quantum Leap.

He played a character villain, "The Bookworm", in the camp 1960s TV series Batman and had an acclaimed recurring role as The Mad Hatter in Batman: The Animated Series. His final acting role in animation, if indeed not overall was for an episode of Godzilla: The Series in the episode "Dreadloch".


During the 1990s, McDowall became active in film preservation and was active in the preserving of Cleopatra (1963), (in which he co-starred) which had been severely cut by 20th Century Fox studio head Darryl F. Zanuck after skyrocketing production costs.

McDowall served for several years in various capacities on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization that presents the Oscar. He was Chairman of the Actor's Branch for five terms. He was elected President of the Academy Foundation the year he died.

Private life
In 1974, the FBI raided the home of McDowall and seized the actor's collection of films and television series. His collection consisted of 160 16 mm prints and over 10,000 videocassettes (this was before the era of VCRs and VHS tapes). McDowall had bought Errol Flynn's home movies and the prints of his directorial debut Tam Lin (1970) starring Ava Gardner, and transferred them all to tape for longer-lasting archival storage.


McDowall was forthcoming about some of the individuals he had dealt with on the black market: Rock Hudson, Dick Martin, and Mel Torme were some of the celebrities that were interested in his creations. No charges were pressed against McDowall.

He also received recognition as a photographer and published five books of photographs, one being of his celebrity friends such as Elizabeth Taylor and Judy Garland.

He died in Studio City, California from lung cancer at the age of 70, the guardian of many secrets (nefarious and otherwise) that Hollywood holds. One of his last public appearances was when he accompanied the then-88 year old actress, Luise Rainer, the earliest awardee of a Best Actress Oscar who attended that year's telecast, which featured all the living previous Oscar winners who were willing and able to attend (more than 70 did).

Roddy at IMDB
www.imdb.com/name/nm0001522/

Roddy Tribute Page
www.roddymcdowall.info/sally/roddy.html

Bio from GLBTQ

For many--perhaps most--child stars, life after adolescence means a decline in fame, financial and personal disaster, and, in all too many cases, substance abuse and premature death. Roddy McDowall was one of the great exceptions to the rule.

The British-born actor not only made a graceful transition from juvenile roles to a career as a highly versatile character actor on both stage and screen, but he also enjoyed acclaim for his photographic portraits of his peers.

Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude McDowall was born in London on September 17, 1928, to a Scottish father and an Irish mother. His mother, who had herself aspired to be an actress, enrolled him in elocution lessons at the age of five; and at the age of ten he had his first major film role as the youngest son in Murder in the Family (1938). Over the next two years he appeared in a dozen British films, in parts large and small.

McDowall's movie career was interrupted, however, by the German bombardment of London in World War II. Accompanied by his sister and his mother, he was one of many London children evacuated to places abroad.

As a result, he arrived in Hollywood in 1940, and the charming young English lad soon landed a major role as the youngest son in How Green Was My Valley (1941). The film made him a star at thirteen, and he appeared as an endearing boy in numerous Hollywood movies throughout the war years, most notably Lassie, Come Home (1943), with fellow English child star Elizabeth Taylor, and My Friend Flicka (1943).

By his late teens, McDowall had outgrown the parts in which he had been most successful. Accordingly, he went to New York to study acting and to hone his skills in a wide variety of roles on the Broadway stage, where he made his debut in 1953 in a revival of George Bernard Shaw's Misalliance.

McDowall was praised for his performance as a gay character in Meyer Levin's Compulsion (1957), a fictionalized account of the Leopold-Loeb murder case; and he won a Tony award for best supporting actor as Tarquin in Jean Anouilh's The Fighting Cock (1960).

After a decade's absence, McDowall returned to Hollywood, and over the last four decades of his life he appeared in more than one hundred films, encompassing a wide range of genres from sophisticated adult comedy to children's fare, from horror to science fiction, usually as a character actor.

His best known appearances include those in The Subterraneans (1960), Midnight Lace (1960), Cleopatra (1963), The Loved One (1965), Inside Daisy Clover (1965), Lord Love a Duck (1966), Planet of the Apes (1968) and its various sequels, Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), The Poseidon Adventure (1973), The Legend of Hell House (1973), Funny Lady (1975), Mae West (1982), Fright Night (1985), Fright Night II (1987), Carmilla (1989), Only the Lonely (1991), Last Summer in the Hamptons (1993), and It's My Party (1995). His last film role was the voice of Mr. Soil, an ant, in A Bug's Life (1997).

Although McDowall never officially "came out," the fact that he was gay was one of Hollywood's best known secrets. It is a tribute to his characteristic discretion and the respect with which "Hollywood's Best Friend" was regarded by his peers that his homosexuality was never really an issue or used against him in his six decades in the entertainment business.

McDowall died of cancer at his home in Studio City, California, on October 3, 1998. At the time of his death, he held several elected posts in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and was a generous benefactor of many film-related charities.
Patricia Juliana Smith