Edmund Purdom
Stage and screen actor Edmund Purdom, a handsome leading man in his youthful heyday, enjoyed a brief and blazing moment of '50s Hollywood stardom, before withdrawing to Europe and a robust career of Italian giallo thrillers, sword-and-sandal sagas, and German Westerns. Purdom arrived on Broadway in 1951, in the vaunted company of powerhouse wedded thespians Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, performing Broadway productions of Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" and Shaw's "Caesar and Cleopatra." The actor, theater-trained from an early age, shone onstage and soon headed for Hollywood, starring in a string of lavish studio pictures, a pair of which are remembered more for the actors he replaced: Marlon Brando in the epic "The Egyptian" and tenor Mario Lanza in the musical "The Student Prince." Following the lively MGM musical "Athena," co-starring Debbie Reynolds and Linda Christian (whom he'd later marry), Purdom top-lined two additional studio misfires (the biblical drama "The Prodigal" and the adventure film "The King's Thief"), before retreating to Rome, where his career endured on European TV screens and films. He made notable appearances in the TV-movie roman-à-clef "Sophia Loren: Her Own Story," as famed director Vittorio de Sica (opposite Loren, of course), and in the star-studded 1964 romantic drama "The Yellow Rolls-Royce." A steady presence in low-budget horror films over the next four decades, Purdom tried his hand at directing the gruesome holiday chiller "Don't Open Till Christmas." He also starred as a Scotland Yard inspector on the trail of a psycho Santa killer.
Photos
Edmund Purdom
Filmography
Movies
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No Score Yet | No Score Yet | The Kights of the Quest | Ugo di Clarendon (Character) | - | 2001 |
No Score Yet |
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Endless Descent | CEO Steensland (Character) | - | 1989 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Killer vs Killers | His Excelency (Character) | - | 1985 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Fracchia contro Dracula | Il conte Vlad (Character) | - | 1985 |
No Score Yet |
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After the Fall of New York | President of the Pan American Confederacy (Character) | - | 1984 |
No Score Yet |
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Don't Open Till Christmas |
Inspector Ian Harris (Character), Director |
- | 1984 |
No Score Yet |
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The Scarlet and the Black |
British Intelligence Officer/ |
- | 1983 |
No Score Yet |
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Invaders of the Lost Gold | Rex Larson (Character) | - | 1982 |
No Score Yet |
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Ator, the Fighting Eagle | Griba (Character) | - | 1982 |
43% |
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Pieces | The Dean (Character) | - | 1982 |
No Score Yet |
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Sophia Loren: Her Own Story | Vittorio de Sica (Character) | - | 1980 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | The New Godfathers | Secret Service Chief (Character) | - | 1979 |
No Score Yet |
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The Concorde Affair | Danker (Character) | - | 1979 |
No Score Yet |
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The Fifth Cord | Edouard Vermont (Character) | - | 1978 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Evil Fingers | Edouard Vermont (Character) | - | 1978 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Mister Scarface | Luigi Cherico (Character) | - | 1977 |
No Score Yet |
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The Night Child | Doctor (Character) | - | 1976 |
No Score Yet |
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Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks | Prefect (Character) | - | 1973 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Fifteen Year Old Captain | Admiral Marlowe (Character) | - | 1972 |
No Score Yet |
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Blackie the Pirate | Viceroy (Character) | - | 1971 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Gun Shy Piluk | Sheriff Roger Brown (Character) | - | 1968 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | The Man Who Laughs | Cesare Borgia (Character) | - | 1966 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Heroes of Fort Worth | Major 'Sugar' Patterson (Character) | - | 1965 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Shoot to Kill | Jim (Character) | - | 1965 |
No Score Yet |
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The Yellow Rolls-Royce | Fane (Character) | - | 1964 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | The Comedy Man | Julian Baxter (Character) | - | 1964 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | The Last Ride to Santa Cruz | Rex Kelly (Character) | - | 1964 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Lafayette | Silas Deane (Character) | - | 1962 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Fury of the Pagans | Toryok (Character) | - | 1962 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | White Slave Ship | Dr. Bradley (Character) | - | 1962 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Suleiman, the Conqueror | Ibrahim Pascià (Character) | - | 1962 |
No Score Yet |
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Queen of the Nile | Tumos (Character) | - | 1961 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Last Ride to Santa Cruz | Rex Kelly (Character) | - | 1961 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | The Night They Killed Rasputin | Rasputin (Character) | - | 1960 |
No Score Yet |
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The Last of the Vikings | King Sveno (Character) | - | 1960 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Malaga | Peter Carran (Character) | - | 1960 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | The Cossacks | Shamil (Character) | - | 1960 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | The Nights of Rasputin | Rasputin (Character) | - | 1960 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Trapped in Tangiers | John Milwood (Character) | - | 1960 |
No Score Yet |
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Herod the Great |
Herod/ |
- | 1959 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Strange Intruder | Paul Quentin (Character) | - | 1956 |
No Score Yet |
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The Prodigal | Micah (Character) | - | 1955 |
No Score Yet |
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The King's Thief | Michael Dermott (Character) | - | 1955 |
No Score Yet |
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Athena | Adam Calhorn Shaw (Character) | - | 1954 |
57% |
|
The Student Prince | Prince Karl (Character) | - | 1954 |
No Score Yet |
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The Egyptian | Sinuhe (Character) | - | 1954 |
92% |
|
Titanic | Second Officer Lightoller (Character) | - | 1953 |