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Jean Hersholt
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Jean Hersholt | |
 Jean Hersholt in a promotional photograph |
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| Birth name | Leonidas Frank Chaney |
| Born | April 1, 1883 Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Died | June 2, 1956 (aged 69) Hollywood, California, USA |
| Spouse(s) | Via Andersen (m. 1914 div. ?) 1 child=Allan Hersholt (play performancer) |
Jean Hersholt (July 12, 1886 – June 2, 1956) was a Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe Award-winning Danish actor.
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Born in Copenhagen, Denmark, Hersholt went on to become a well-known actor in the United States, best known for his portrayal of Marcus Schouler in Erich von Stroheim's 1924 film Greed. He was also a Hans Christian Andersen enthusiast who assembled a large collection of books related to that writer (now in the Library of Congress). His translations of Andersen's Tales are considered the best English version in existence. Hersholt also played Shirley Temple's beloved grandfather in the 1937 film version of the 1880 children's book, Heidi, written by Swiss author Johanna Spyri.
Translated over 160 of Danish author Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales into English. These were published in 1949 in six volumes as "The Complete Andersen". Hersholt was knighted by King Christian X of Denmark in 1948 partly due to this endeavor. Hersholt's grave in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery is marked with a statue of Klods Hans, a Hans Christian Anderson character who left Denmark to find his way in the the world - much as Hersholt himself did. In 1939 Hersholt helped to form the Motion Picture Relief Fund. This fund helped to support industry employees with medical care when they were down on their luck and was used to create the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. This led to the creation in 1956 of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian an honorary Academy Award given to an "individual in the motion picture industry whose humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the industry."
Asked how to say his name, he told The Literary Digest "In English, her'sholt; in Danish, hairs'hult." (Charles Earle Funk, What's the Name, Please?, Funk & Wagnalls, 1936.)
He died in Hollywood, California and was interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.