Topic: George Sanders

George Henry Sanders (3 July 1906 – 25 April 1972) was a Russian-born English film, and television actor, singer-songwriter, and music composer. Sanders' extremly heavy english accent and baritone voice often led him to portray sophisticated, but villianous characters. He is known most of all as Addison DeWitt in All About Eve (1950) and the villainous tiger Shere Khan in The Jungle Book (1967). His career spanned more than forty years.

Sanders was born in Saint Petersburg, Imperial Russia at number 6 Petrovski Ostrov. His English parents were Henry Sanders (1873–1961) and Margaret Sanders (1875–1967). His elder brother was actor Tom Conway (1904–1967). His younger sister Margaret Sanders was born in 1912. Sanders was 11 when, in 1917 at the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, the family went back to England. Like his brother he attended Brighton College, a boys' independent school in Brighton, Sussex, then went on to Manchester Technical College. After graduation he worked at an advertising agency where the company secretary, aspiring actress Greer Garson, suggested he take up a career in acting.

Sanders made his British film debut in 1929. Seven years later, after a series of British films his first role in an American production was Lloyd's of London (1936) as Lord Everett Stacy. His smooth, upper-crust English accent and sleek British manner along with a suave, snobbish and somewhat threatening air put him in demand for American films throughout the next decade. He played supporting roles in high end productions such as Rebecca (in which he and Judith Anderson played cruel foils to Joan Fontaine's character). He had leading roles in somewhat lower budget pictures such as Rage in Heaven. He was also the lead in both The Falcon and The Saint film series. In 1942 Sanders handed off the Falcon role to his brother Tom, in The Falcon's Brother. The only other film in which the two brothers appeared together was Death of a Scoundrel (1956), in which they also played brothers.