--- name: "Clive Brook" canonical: "https://film.one/person/clive-brook" roles: ["Actor"] born: "1 June 1887" died: "17 November 1974" reviewed_on_fi1m: 2 average_fi1m_score: 68 average_as: "actor" average_over: 2 updated: "2026-09-19T22:01:48.768086+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Clive Brook Actor. Born 1 June 1887 in Tufnell Park, London, England, UK. Died 17 November 1974. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 1 June 1887, Tufnell Park, London, England, UK - **Died:** 17 November 1974 - **Active:** 1931–1933 - **Also known as:** Клайв Брук, Clifford Hardman "Clive" Brook, Clifford Hardman Brook - **Frequently works with:** [Beryl Mercer](https://film.one/person/beryl-mercer.md), [Frank Lloyd](https://film.one/person/frank-lloyd-72061.md), [Winfield Sheehan](https://film.one/person/winfield-r-sheehan.md) - **Average Fi1m score:** 68, as actor, over 2 titles - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Brook, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1101883, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0111612/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/13340 ## Fi1m on Clive Brook > Clive Brook was Hollywood's Englishman for a decade: clipped, upright, decent and slightly stiff. We admire the steadiness. We are less sure that anyone, Brook included, ever found out what else he could do. Clive Brook stands up straight. In *Cavalcade* (1933) he plays Robert Marryot with a moustache and a flag and takes the years on the chin, and the film asks nothing else of him. That was the job for most of his career: the reserved English gentleman, clipped of speech, dry of manner, unlikely to raise his voice. He did it in Hollywood for a decade and then he did it at home. He came to acting late, after serving as a major in the war, and went on stage in 1918 and into British films in 1920. Paramount signed him in 1924 and he became a leading man across the end of the silents and the start of sound, which not every silent face managed; the voice, clipped and unhurried, turned out to be the point. He made *Underworld* (1927) and *Shanghai Express* (1932) with Josef von Sternberg, the second opposite Marlene Dietrich, and it is still the film people name first. He played Sherlock Holmes in some of the detective's earliest talkies between 1929 and 1932. Then he went back to Britain around 1935 and worked there until 1944. The reserve is real and it is not nothing. Standing still and letting the other actor do the talking is a skill, and Brook could hold a frame without asking to be looked at. The trouble is what happens when the script has decided that standing still is all a decent Englishman does. In *Cavalcade* Diana Wynyard ages a lifetime with her face while Brook salutes beside her, and we found ourselves waiting, as the years went by, for him to be surprised by anything. He never is. That is Coward's doing and Frank Lloyd's before it is his, but he does not fight it, and the word critics reach for when he does not fight it is wooden. We would not go that far. Wood does not know it is being patient. Late on he did the thing reserved actors rarely do and took charge. *On Approval* (1944) is his only film as director; he adapted it, produced it and played a duke in it, and then he stopped, apart from one appearance in *The List of Adrian Messenger* (1963). A man who kept to one manner for two decades, then made a single drawing-room comedy and left, knew exactly what shop he was keeping. We have reviewed only *Cavalcade*, and it is not the film to judge him by. Watch it for Wynyard; then find *Shanghai Express*, where the reputation was made. ## Biography Clive Brook was an English stage and film actor. Born Clifford Hardman Brook in Islington, London, he served as a major in the British Army during the First World War before making his professional stage debut in 1920. He appeared in early British films and moved to Hollywood in 1924, where he became a leading man for Paramount. Notable roles include the lead in Josef von Sternberg’s *Underworld* (1927), Captain Donald 'Doc' Harvey in *Shanghai Express* (1932), Robert Marryot in *Cavalcade* (1933), and the first talking Sherlock Holmes. He also appeared as Capt. William Levison in *East Lynne* (1931) and later as the Marquis of Gleneyre in *The List of Adrian Messenger* (1963). Brook returned to Britain in the mid-1930s and continued in film roles until retiring from the screen in 1944. He directed and starred in *On Approval* (1944). *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, nytimes.com.* ## On Fi1m (2) - *Cavalcade* (1933), Fi1m 57, as Robert Marryot — [page](https://film.one/film/cavalcade.md) - *Shanghai Express* (1932), Fi1m 80, as Captain Donald 'Doc' Harvey — [page](https://film.one/film/shanghai-express.md) ## Complete filmography (86) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *The List of Adrian Messenger* (1963), as Marquis of Gleneyre - *On Approval* (1944), as George, 10th Duke of Bristol · Director, Adaptation, Producer - *The Shipbuilders* (1943), as Leslie Pagan - *The Flemish Farm* (1943), as Maj. Lessart - *Breach of Promise* (1942), as Peter Conroy - *Freedom Radio* (1941), as Dr. Karl Roder - *Convoy* (1940), as Captain Tom Armitage - *Return to Yesterday* (1940), as Robert Maine / Manning - *The Ware Case* (1938), as Sir Hubert Ware - *Action for Slander* (1937), as Ann Daviot - *Love in Exile* (1936), as King Regis VI - *Lonely Road* (1936), as Malcolm Stevenson - *Dressed to Thrill* (1935), as Bill Trent - *The Dictator* (1935), as Dr. Struensee - *Let's Try Again* (1934), as Jack - *Where Sinners Meet* (1934), as Latimer - *Gallant Lady* (1933), as Dan Pritchard - *If I Were Free* (1933), as Gordon Evers - *Midnight Club* (1933), as Colin Grant - *Cavalcade* (1933), as Robert Marryot — Fi1m 57, [page](https://film.one/film/cavalcade.md) - *Sherlock Holmes* (1932), as Sherlock Holmes - *The Night of June 13* (1932), as John Curry - *Make Me a Star* (1932), as Clive Brook (uncredited) - *The Man from Yesterday* (1932), as Captain Tony Clyde - *Shanghai Express* (1932), as Captain Donald 'Doc' Harvey — Fi1m 80, [page](https://film.one/film/shanghai-express.md) - *Husband's Holiday* (1931), as George Boyd - *24 Hours* (1931), as James Morton Towner - *Silence* (1931), as Jim Warren - *The Lawyer's Secret* (1931), as Drake Norris - *Tarnished Lady* (1931), as Norman Cravath - *East Lynne* (1931), as Capt. William Levison - *Scandal Sheet* (1931), as Noel Adams - *Anybody's Woman* (1930), as Neil Dunlap - *Sweethearts and Wives* (1930), as Reginald De Brett - *Paramount on Parade* (1930), as Sherlock Holmes - *Slightly Scarlet* (1930), as Hon. Courtenay Parkes - *The Laughing Lady* (1929), as Daniel Farr - *The Return of Sherlock Holmes* (1929), as Sherlock Holmes - *Charming Sinners* (1929), as Robert Miles - *The Four Feathers* (1929), as Lt. Jack Durrance - *A Dangerous Woman* (1929), as Frank Gregory - *Interference* (1929), as Sir John Marlay - *Forgotten Faces* (1928), as Heliotrope Harry - *The Perfect Crime* (1928), as Benson - *The Yellow Lily* (1928), as Archduke Alexander - *Midnight Madness* (1928), as Michael Bream - *French Dressing* (1927), as Henri de Briac - *The Devil Dancer* (1927), as Stephen Athelstan - *Barbed Wire* (1927), as Oskar Muller - *Hula* (1927), as Anthony Haldane - *Underworld* (1927), as Rolls Royce - *Afraid to Love* (1927), as Sir Reginald Belsize - *The Popular Sin* (1926), as Jean Corot - *You Never Know Women* (1926), as Norodin - *For Alimony Only* (1926), as Peter Williams - *Why Girls Go Back Home* (1926), as Clifford Dudley - *When Love Grows Cold* (1926), as Jerry Benson - *The Pleasure Buyers* (1925), as Tad Workman - *The Home Maker* (1925), as Lester Knapp - *Seven Sinners* (1925), as Jerry Winters - *Compromise* (1925), as Alan Tahyer - *The Woman Hater* (1925), Actor - *Playing with Souls* (1925), as Matthew Dale Sr. - *Déclassé* (1925), as Rudolph Solomon - *Enticement* (1925), as Henry Wallis - *The Mirage* (1924), as Henry Galt - *Human Desires* (1924), as Georges Gautier - *Christine of the Hungry Heart* (1924), as Dr. Alan Monteagle - *The Passionate Adventure* (1924), as Adrien St. Clair - *The White Shadow* (1924), as Robin Field - *The Wine of Life* (1924), as Michael Strong - *The Money Habit* (1924), as Noel Jason - *The Royal Oak* (1923), as Dorian Clavering - *Out to Win* (1923), as Barraclough - *Through Fire and Water* (1923), as John Dryden - *Woman to Woman* (1923), as David Compton / David Anson-Pond - *A Debt of Honour* (1922), as Walter Hyde - *The Experiment* (1922), as Vivian Caryll - *Shirley* (1922), as Robert Moore - *Married to a Mormon* (1922), as Lionel Daventry - *Tense Moments from Opera* (1922), as Duke of Mantua / Alfred Germont (segments "Rigoletto", "La Traviata") - *A Tale of Two Cities* (1922), as Sydney Carton - *Vanity Fair* (1922), as Rawdon Crawley - *Christie Johnstone* (1921), as Astral Hither - *Daniel Deronda* (1921), as Mallinger Grandcourt - *De Femme à Femme*, Actor ## Gallery - ![Clive Brook](https://film.one/media/person/1225171/gallery-b0a76eb3878b.jpg) Clive Brook — Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/Film_actor_Clive_Brook_%28SAYRE_11966%29.jpg/1280px-Film_actor_Clive_Brook_%28SAYRE_11966%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Postcard photograph of English actor Clive Brook (1927)](https://film.one/media/person/1225171/gallery-3990edde6207.jpg) Postcard photograph of English actor Clive Brook (1927) — Paramount, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Clive_Brook_Vintage_postcard.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Jumbo lobby card for the 1930 film Paramount on Parade Image is a scene from the "Murder Will Out" skit, with Warner Oland (Fu Manchu), Clive Brook (Sherlock Ho](https://film.one/media/person/1225171/gallery-cc4a9b7a5333.jpg) Jumbo lobby card for the 1930 film Paramount on Parade Image is a scene from the "Murder Will Out" skit, with Warner Oland (Fu Manchu), Clive Brook (Sherlock Ho — Paramount Pictures, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/ba/Paramount-on-Parade-1930-LC.jpg/1280px-Paramount-on-Parade-1930-LC.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Clive Brook (left) and Florence Vidor in Afraid to Love (1927).](https://film.one/media/person/1225171/gallery-7b4ed7315d61.jpg) Clive Brook (left) and Florence Vidor in Afraid to Love (1927). — Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Clive_Brook_and_Florence_Vidor_in_Afraid_to_Love.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Clive Brook](https://film.one/media/person/1225171/gallery-71ef8348e8e1.jpg) Clive Brook — Image via TMDB - ![Clive Brook](https://film.one/media/person/1225171/gallery-36f2896376c8.jpg) Clive Brook — Image via TMDB - ![Clive Brook](https://film.one/media/person/1225171/gallery-994a2ac58755.jpg) Clive Brook — Image via TMDB - ![Clive Brook (left) and Florence Vidor in Afraid to Love (1927).](https://film.one/media/person/1225171/gallery-3e0205ce8c16.jpg) Clive Brook (left) and Florence Vidor in Afraid to Love (1927). — Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f4/Clive_Brook_and_Florence_Vidor_in_Afraid_to_Love_%282%29.jpg/1280px-Clive_Brook_and_Florence_Vidor_in_Afraid_to_Love_%282%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Florence Vidor (left) and Clive Brook in Afraid to Love (1927).](https://film.one/media/person/1225171/gallery-22aa67078780.jpg) Florence Vidor (left) and Clive Brook in Afraid to Love (1927). — Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Florence_Vidor_and_Clive_Brook_in_Afraid_to_Love.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/clive-brook