Reginald Alfred Truscott-Jones was born in Wales on January 3, 1905. Little is known of his very early childhood years. He served three years with the Royal Household Cavalry in London as a guardsman and then entered the British cinema in 1929 (“The Plaything”). Stories abound about his name change but in his own biography, he said to his agent, ” I don’t really care what you call me. I must keep the initial “R” because my mother had it engraved on my suitcases. But if you don’t come up with something soon, I’m packing these suitcases and going back to the mill lands where I came from.”
He found Hollywood (or it found him) in 1930 and for several years afterwards he played mostly second leads. He graduated to a leading man in the mid 1930s, and his charming good looks and debonair manner made him the perfect star for many of the drawing room comedies that were so popular at the time. Although he was always an accomplished performer, little note was made of his talents until 1945 and his strong portrayal of an alcoholic writer in “The Lost Weekend” for which he won an Academy Award.
Ray Milland has the distinction of being the only winner of The Best Actor Award to have accepted without a single word, opting instead to simply bow his appreciation before casually exiting the stage. He was also the first actor to win an Acting Award at the Cannes Film Festival and an Oscar for the same role (“The Lost Weekend”).
Ray Milland was part of the dynamic Hollywood scene for almost half a century, starting as a novice and working his way up to leading man, competent director and distinguished character actor. Although in his later years he took his share of “schlock parts” to keep busy and pay the bills, his reputation as a fine actor remains untarnished. He was married to the same woman for 54 years and had two children, a son and a daughter. He died of lung cancer on March 10 1986.
What are some of YOUR favorite Ray Milland films?