HERBERT MARSHALL

Classic Film Actor with a Disability

We are remembering the great Herbert Marshall, who was born on May 23rd 1890, in London. This man is indisputable proof that you should never let a tag of impossibility prevent you from reaching your dreams.

After being shot in the leg on the Western Front on April 9th, 1917, Herbert was immobile for several months before learning to walk with a prosthetic leg. Despite his injury and the pain that it fueled, Herbert never once let his disability become an emotional barrier that would curtail his efforts to further pursue a career in acting. He still realized that he encompassed all the requirements that was needed to achieve his goal. Ultimately, he ascended to the top echelon of motion pictures and carved his way into cinematic history. Depending on your taste in movies, you may know Herbert Marshall best as the suave star of one of Ernst Lubitsch’s best movies, Trouble in Paradise (1932), the peace-loving diplomat with a secret in Alfred Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent (1940), Bette Davis’s husband in two films, The Letter(1940) and The Little Foxes (1941), a stand-in for writer W. Somerset Maugham in two adaptations of his work, The Moon and Sixpence (1942) and The Razor’s Edge (1946), or the French police inspector in the sci-fi classic The Fly (1958). He seems the epitome of British-ness, the proper gentleman who seemed to have been born with a stiff upper lip. His mellifluous voice and easy demeanor guaranteed continuous work in later years in film, television and radio. He is one individual who should always elude sinking into obscurity.