--- name: "Edmund Gwenn" canonical: "https://film.one/person/edmund-gwenn" roles: ["Actor"] born: "26 September 1877" died: "6 September 1959" reviewed_on_fi1m: 3 average_fi1m_score: 73 average_as: "actor" average_over: 3 updated: "2026-09-20T01:36:40.051221+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." --- # Edmund Gwenn Actor. Born 26 September 1877 in Wandsworth, London, England, UK. Died 6 September 1959. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 26 September 1877, Wandsworth, London, England, UK - **Died:** 6 September 1959 - **Active:** 1936–1947 - **Also known as:** Edmund John Kellaway, Эдмунд Гвенн - **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar (1 won · 1 nominated) - **Average Fi1m score:** 73, as actor, over 3 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 1930s 57 (1), 1940s 80 (2) - **Score spread:** 1 at 80+, 1 at 60–79, 1 under 60 - **Lead roles:** 0 of 3 acting credits billed first or second - **Genres:** Drama 2, Action 1, Comedy 1, Family 1, History 1, Mystery 1 - **Screen time:** 6 hours of reviewed films - **Box office:** $5m across 2 films with figures - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Gwenn, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q344750, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0350324/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/22600 ## Streaming the US now - **Disney+:** [*Miracle on 34th Street*](https://film.one/film/miracle-on-34th-street.md) (85) - **Hulu:** [*Foreign Correspondent*](https://film.one/film/foreign-correspondent.md) (76) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Edmund Gwenn > Edmund Gwenn played kindly old men so well that directors, Hitchcock above all, learned to use the kindness against us. Give him something to hide beneath it and he is a pleasure; ask only for warmth and he supplies it, and little else. For ten minutes of *Foreign Correspondent* (1940), a cheerful Londoner called Rowley attaches himself to the hero and will not stop talking, delighted with his own company, the sort of man you would move away from on a bus. We laughed at him. Then Hitchcock takes him up a tower and the laugh curdles, and we realised the pleasantness had been the whole point: we had been looking at a harmless old man because that is what Gwenn had told us to see. It is what he did best, and it is the reason directors kept hiring him. He had been at it a long time before Hollywood noticed. On stage from 1895, in London and Australia, he played Shaw and Galsworthy, and he was in films from 1916. He took his stage part as Hornblower in Galsworthy's *The Skin Game* into Hitchcock's 1931 film of it, the first of four they made together. *Sylvia Scarlett* (1935) took him to America, and from 1940 he stayed, arriving in time to be Mr Bennet in *Pride and Prejudice* (1940). The forties and fifties were the busy years: dozens of supporting parts, and in 1947 the one he is still remembered for, Kris Kringle, the department store Santa Claus in *Miracle on 34th Street*. What he brought from the theatre was a habit of playing the man rather than the type. The type was fixed early, kindly, avuncular, faintly whimsical, and a lazier actor would have let it do the work. Gwenn gave each old gentleman a particular way of being pleased with himself, so that his Bonnyfeather in *Anthony Adverse* (1936) is warm and decent and no more than that, while Rowley is warm and decent and a hired killer. The difference is not in Gwenn; it is in what the script lets him keep back. *Anthony Adverse* kept its source's furniture and lost its story, and he is good furniture in it. Given a secret, he is something else. Hitchcock kept coming back for him, and the late parts show why. Captain Wiles in *The Trouble with Harry* (1955) lets the comic timing run without a chase to interrupt it. Dr Medford, in the 1954 film about giant ants, turns the same benign manner into authority, and the picture is steadier for having him in it. He never carried a picture, and the one reservation anyone raises about him is that he stayed a supporting player after crossing the Atlantic. We do not hold it against him; the films are shorter for his being in them, and better. Start with *Foreign Correspondent*. Ten minutes is enough to see what he was for. ## Biography Edmund Gwenn, born Edmund John Kellaway, was an English actor. He played John Bonnyfeather in the 1936 film *Anthony Adverse*. He is best remembered for his role as Kris Kringle in *Miracle on 34th Street* (1947), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a Golden Globe Award. He received a second Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination for *Mister 880* (1950). Gwenn appeared in four films directed by Alfred Hitchcock, including *Foreign Correspondent* (1940) and *The Trouble with Harry* (1955). As a stage actor he performed in the West End and on Broadway in works by playwrights including Bernard Shaw, John Galsworthy and J. B. Priestley. After the Second World War he lived in the United States. His brother was the actor Arthur Chesney and his cousin was the actor Cecil Kellaway. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org.* ## On Fi1m (3) - *Miracle on 34th Street* (1947), Fi1m 85, as Kris Kringle — [page](https://film.one/film/miracle-on-34th-street.md) - *Foreign Correspondent* (1940), Fi1m 76, as Rowley — [page](https://film.one/film/foreign-correspondent.md) - *Anthony Adverse* (1936), Fi1m 57, as John Bonnyfeather — [page](https://film.one/film/anthony-adverse.md) ## Complete filmography (85) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *The Greer Case* (1957), as Jack Baldwin - *The Rocket from Calabuch* (1956), as Prof. Jorge Serra Hamilton - *It's a Dog's Life* (1955), as Jeremiah Edward Emmett Augustus Nolan - *Matinee Theater* (1955), series, Actor - *The Trouble with Harry* (1955), as Captain Wiles - *Alfred Hitchcock Presents* (1955), series, as Joe Saunders - *The Millionaire* (1955), series, as Walter Clinton Carter - *Them!* (1954), as Dr. Harold Medford - *The Student Prince* (1954), as Prof. Juttner - *The Bigamist* (1953), as Mr. Jordan - *Mister Scoutmaster* (1953), as Dr. Stone - *Something for the Birds* (1952), as 'Admiral' Johnnie Adams - *Bonzo Goes to College* (1952), as Coach Ted 'Pop' Drew - *Les Miserables* (1952), as Bishop Courbet - *Sally and Saint Anne* (1952), as Grandpa Pat Ryan - *Peking Express* (1951), as Father Joseph Murray - *For Heaven's Sake* (1950), as Arthur - *Mister 880* (1950), as William "Skipper" Miller - *Pretty Baby* (1950), as Cyrus Baxter - *Louisa* (1950), as Mr. Hammond - *A Woman of Distinction* (1950), as J.D. Middlecott - *Challenge to Lassie* (1949), as John Traill - *Hills of Home* (1948), as Mr. Milton - *Apartment for Peggy* (1948), as Prof. Henry C. Barnes - *Thunder in the Valley* (1947), as Adam MacAdam - *Life with Father* (1947), as Rev. Dr. Lloyd - *Miracle on 34th Street* (1947), as Kris Kringle — Fi1m 85, [page](https://film.one/film/miracle-on-34th-street.md) - *Green Dolphin Street* (1947), as Octavius Patourel - *Undercurrent* (1946), as Professor Hamilton - *Of Human Bondage* (1946), as Athelny - *She Went to the Races* (1945), as Dr. Homer Pecke - *Bewitched* (1945), as Dr. Bergson - *Dangerous Partners* (1945), as Albert Richard Kingby - *The Keys of the Kingdom* (1944), as Fr. Hamish MacNabb - *Between Two Worlds* (1944), as Scrubby - *Lassie Come Home* (1943), as Rowlie Palmer - *The Meanest Man in the World* (1943), as Frederick P. Leggitt - *Forever and a Day* (1943), as Stubbs - *The Greatest Gift* (1942), as Bartolomé the Juggler - *A Yank at Eton* (1942), as Headmaster Justin - *Charley's Aunt* (1941), as Stephen Spettigue - *One Night In Lisbon* (1941), as Lord Fitzleigh - *The Devil and Miss Jones* (1941), as Hooper - *Scotland Yard* (1941), as Insp. Cork - *Cheers for Miss Bishop* (1941), as President Corcoran - *Foreign Correspondent* (1940), as Rowley — Fi1m 76, [page](https://film.one/film/foreign-correspondent.md) - *Pride and Prejudice* (1940), as Mr. Bennet - *The Doctor Takes a Wife* (1940), as Dr. Lionel Sterling - *An Englishman's Home* (1940), as Tom Brown - *The Earl of Chicago* (1940), as Munsey, the Butler - *Cheer Boys Cheer* (1939), as Edward Ironside - *Happy Family* (1939), as Dad - *Penny Paradise* (1938), as Joe Higgins - *South Riding* (1938), as Alfred Huggins - *A Yank at Oxford* (1938), as Dean of Cardinal - *Parnell* (1937), as Henry Campbell - *Laburnum Grove* (1936), as Mr. Radfern - *Mad Holiday* (1936), as Williams - *All American Chump* (1936), as Jeffrey Crane - *Anthony Adverse* (1936), as John Bonnyfeather — Fi1m 57, [page](https://film.one/film/anthony-adverse.md) - *The Walking Dead* (1936), as Dr. Evan Beaumont - *Sylvia Scarlett* (1935), as Henry Scarlett - *The Bishop Misbehaves* (1935), as Bishop - *Spring in the Air* (1935), as Franz - *Father and Son* (1935), as John Bolton - *Passing Shadows* (1934), as David Lawrence - *Java Head* (1934), as Jeremy Ammidon - *Waltzes from Vienna* (1934), as Johann Strauss, the Elder - *The Admiral's Secret* (1934), as Adm. Fitzporter - *Friday the Thirteenth* (1933), as Wakefield - *Channel Crossing* (1933), as Trotter - *Cash* (1933), as Edmund Gilbert - *I Was a Spy* (1933), as Burgomaster - *Early to Bed* (1933), as Kruger - *The Good Companions* (1933), as Jess Oakroyd - *Tell Me Tonight* (1932), as Mayor Pategg - *Love on Wheels* (1932), as Philpotts - *Condemned to Death* (1932), as Banting - *Money for Nothing* (1932), as Sir Henry Blossom - *Frail Women* (1932), as Jim Willis - *Hindle Wakes* (1931), as Chris Hawthorne - *The Skin Game* (1931), as Mr. Hornblower - *How He Lied to Her Husband* (1931), as Her Husband (Teddy Bompas) - *The Skin Game* (1921), as Hornblower - *The Real Thing at Last* (1916), as Rupert K. Thunder / Macbeth ## Gallery - ![Photo of Edmund Gwenn from a presentation on the television program Schlitz Playhouse of Stars. (1953)](https://film.one/media/person/1228947/gallery-b197ea6c41b1.jpg) Photo of Edmund Gwenn from a presentation on the television program Schlitz Playhouse of Stars. (1953) — Barkin, Herman & Associates-public relations for Schlitz, the show's sponsor., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Edmund_Gwenn_1953_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Edmund Gwenn](https://film.one/media/person/1228947/gallery-4284090597e2.jpg) Edmund Gwenn — Barkin, Herman & Associates-public relations for Schlitz, the show's sponsor., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Edmund_Gwenn_1953.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Edmund Gwenn](https://film.one/media/person/1228947/gallery-4952501f4da8.jpg) Edmund Gwenn — Image via TMDB - ![Edmund Gwenn](https://film.one/media/person/1228947/gallery-7646ef23f7fd.jpg) Edmund Gwenn — Image via TMDB ## Awards ### Academy Awards — 1 won, 1 nominated - 1951: Best Supporting Actor (nominated), for *Mister 880* - 1948: Best Supporting Actor (won), for *Miracle on 34th Street* ### Golden Globes — 2 won - 1951: Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture (won), for *Mister 880* - 1948: Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture (won), for *Miracle on 34th Street* *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © 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/edmund-gwenn