Robinson, Edward G.

Robinson, Edward G., 1893–1973, American movie actor, b. Bucharest, Romania, as Emmanuel Goldberg. He made his stage debut in New York City in 1915. A short, tough-looking man, Robinson played both vicious gangsters and amiable men, the latter frequently led astray by unfaithful women. His most famous role was as the snarling mobster in Little Caesar (1931). He played criminals in such movies as Five Star Final (1931), Kid Galahad (1937), and Key Largo (1948), and more sympathetic parts in Double Indemnity (1944), The Stranger (1946), Tight Spot (1955), and Soylent Green (1973).

Bibliography

See his autobiography (1974).

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Robinson, Edward G.

 orig. Emmanuel Goldenberg

(born Dec. 12, 1893, Bucharest, Rom.—died Jan. 26, 1973, Hollywood, Calif., U.S.) Romanian-born U.S. film actor. He was raised in New York City's Lower East Side and won a scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Art. He was largely a stage actor until the advent of sound movies. He won fame playing a gangster boss in Little Caesar (1931). Short and chubby, with heavy features and a gruff voice, Robinson was content that his career would consist of rough-and-tumble roles and character parts. His later films include Barbary Coast (1935), Double Indemnity (1944), The Woman in the Window (1944), Scarlet Street (1945), All My Sons (1948), Key Largo (1948), and The Cincinnati Kid (1965). In 1973 he was posthumously awarded an honorary Academy Award.

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Robinson, Edward G. (b. Emmanuel Goldenberg) (1893–1973) movie actor; born in Bucharest, Romania. Coming to the U.S.A. at age 10, he took up acting at City College of New York; he made his stage debut in 1913 and his Hollywood debut in 1923. Short, squat, with an inimitable mouth and imitable voice, he became a star in Little Caesar (1931) and for some years seemed typecast as a criminal. But he moved on to play a wide variety of roles and although his career was set back when he was attacked in the early 1950s by the House Un-American Activities Committee, he recovered and was voted a Special Academy Award in 1972. He was also known as a collector of 19th- and 20th-century art, although he had to sell it in 1956 to satisfy a divorce settlement.