Roddy McDowall

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Birthday:

17 September 1928, Herne Hill, London, England, UK

Birth Name:

Roderick Andrew McDowall

Height:

175 cm

Roderick McDowall was born in London, the son of a Merchant Mariner father and a mother who had always wanted to be in movies. He was enrolled in elocution courses at age five and by ten had appeared in his first film, Murder in the Family (1938), playing Peter Osborne, the younger brother of sisters played by Jessica Tandy and Glynis Johns. His mother brought Roddy and his sister to the US at the beginning of World War II, and he soon got the part of Huw, youngest child in a family of Welsh coal miners, in John Ford's How Green Was My Valley (1941), acting alongside Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara and Donald Crisp in the film that won that year's best film Oscar. He went on to many other child roles, in films like My Friend Flicka (1943) and Lassie Come Home (1943) until, at age 18, he moved to New York, where he played a long series of successful stage roles, both on Broadway and in such venues as Connecticut's Stratford Festival, where he did Shakespeare. In addition to making many more movies (over 150), McDowall acted in television, developed an extensive collection of movies and Hollywood memorabilia, and published five acclaimed books of his own photography. He died at his Los Angeles home, aged 70, of cancer. Show less «

Intellectually, I'd love to play Stanley Kowalski in "A Streetcar Named Desire". Can't you just imagine me down in the streets yelling, "Ste...Show more »

Intellectually, I'd love to play Stanley Kowalski in "A Streetcar Named Desire". Can't you just imagine me down in the streets yelling, "Stella! Stella!". God, the critics would have a lot of fun with that one. Show less «

[on his more well-known roles as a child actor] I really liked Lassie, but that horse, Flicka, was a nasty animal with a terrible dispositio...Show more »

[on his more well-known roles as a child actor] I really liked Lassie, but that horse, Flicka, was a nasty animal with a terrible disposition. All the Flickas--all six of them--were awful. Show less «

My whole life I've been trying to prove I'm not just yesterday.

I enjoyed being in movies when I was a boy. As a child, you're not acting--you believe. Ah, if an adult could only act as a child does with ...Show more »

I enjoyed being in movies when I was a boy. As a child, you're not acting--you believe. Ah, if an adult could only act as a child does with that insane, playing-at-toy-soldiers concentration! Show less «

[in 1976, on his fellow former child stars] Compare us to your high school graduating class. You'll discover there is always a percentage of...Show more »

[in 1976, on his fellow former child stars] Compare us to your high school graduating class. You'll discover there is always a percentage of successes, and those who fall by the wayside to become alcoholics, dopers, or just plain losers. Sure there are the Bobby Driscolls, the tragedies, but don't forget the others: Elizabeth Taylor, Hayley Mills, Natalie Wood, Gene Reynolds--who's a successful producer--and so many others. Show less «

I absolutely adore movies. Even bad ones. I don't like pretentious ones, but a good bad movie, you must admit, is great.

All you can do is make a piece of product, sell it on its own terms, stand behind it and hope that people will go see it. If you try to be l...Show more »

All you can do is make a piece of product, sell it on its own terms, stand behind it and hope that people will go see it. If you try to be like something else or appeal to any given group, then you can very easily end up being gratuitous and imitative. There's not much to be gained by that and I think too much time is spent going around trying to be like someone else. Show less «

[on Mia Farrow] Trying to describe Mia is like trying to describe dust in a shaft of sunlight. There are all those particles. Her conversati...Show more »

[on Mia Farrow] Trying to describe Mia is like trying to describe dust in a shaft of sunlight. There are all those particles. Her conversation is clotted. Show less «

[on the Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton romance] I knew back in Rome when we were making Cleopatra (1963) that it would never work. Elizabet...Show more »

[on the Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton romance] I knew back in Rome when we were making Cleopatra (1963) that it would never work. Elizabeth doesn't just love someone; she possesses them. And Richard isn't a man to be possessed. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did. Show less «

[in 1968, on his career] . . . totally isolated, really suffocating. As a child, I was always lied to about myself and about the world.