Charles Henry Pywell Daniell was a renowned English actor, born in London, England, to Elinor Mary (Wookey) and Henry Pyweh Daniell, L.R.C.P.
He made his professional debut on the eve of World War I, but his life was interrupted when he served in the trenches on the Western Front with the 2nd Battalion of the British Army's Norfolk Regiment. Wounded in action, he was invalided out of service in 1915 and spent several years on the West End stage without achieving significant recognition.
In 1921, Daniell moved to the United States and worked tirelessly to establish himself as a character player on Broadway, initially starring as Prince Charles de Vaucluse in "Claire de Lune". He received critical acclaim in only his third performance on Broadway, co-starring with Ethel Barrymore in "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray" (1924).
Daniell continued to alternate between touring on both sides of the Atlantic and appeared on screen for the first time in 1929. His distinctive features, cold voice, and incisive manner made him well-suited for roles as icy aristocrats or manipulating villains in period dramas.
One of his most famous roles was as the duplicitous Lord Wolfingham in The Sea Hawk (1940),although his inexperience as a swordsman led Warner Brothers to use a stuntman for the climactic fight scene with Errol Flynn.
Under contract to MGM (1936-37),Daniell also excelled as the Baron de Varville in Camille (1936),the erstwhile mentor of Greta Garbo, and as the scheming La Motte in Marie Antoinette (1938). His other notable portrayals include the hypocritical clergyman Henry Brocklehurst in Jane Eyre (1943) and the gleefully villainous Regent in The Bandit of Sherwood Forest (1946).
In the 1940s, Daniell appeared in a range of lower-budget productions, delivering two of his finest performances as Professor Moriarty in The Woman in Green (1945) and Dr. Wolfe MacFarlane in The Body Snatcher (1945). He also took on the occasional comedic role, most notably as 'Garbitsch' in Charles Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940).
On stage, Daniell enjoyed his most successful run as the avaricious Henri Trochard in "My 3 Angels" at the Morosco Theatre in 1953, which was later filmed as We're No Angels (1955).
Charles Daniell passed away after suffering a heart attack at his home, just hours after completing filming for his final movie, My Fair Lady (1964).
