Roy D'Arcy(1894-1969)
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Roy D'Arcy was born Roy Giusti in San Francisco in 1894 but educated in
Europe. For a while he traveled with a band of gypsies throughout the
Continent, but left to study art and painting in Paris. After several
years of traveling and various business ventures in South America and
Asia he returned to the US and decided to become involved in the
theater. He got a job as a singer in several touring theatrical
companies, and in 1919 made his film debut in Coeurs de vingt ans (1919) in a role he had
played on the stage. He spent some time in vaudeville as a monologist,
and took his act to Europe and Asia. When he returned to the US he was
performing his show on a Los Angeles stage when he was spotted by
director Erich von Stroheim, who though D'Arcy was just right for the part of the
villainous, arrogant Prince Mirko in La veuve joyeuse (1925) (Von Stroheim had wanted
to play the part himself, but was forbidden from doing so by MGM
production head Irving Thalberg). It was a troubled production - from which Von
Stroheim was fired, brought back, then fired again - but the film was a
great critical and financial success, and D'Arcy received rave reviews
for his superb portrayal of the cruel, dissolute Mirko.
Because of the success of that film, D'Arcy was thrown into several other productions as the head villain, such as Graustark (1925), La Bohème (1926) and La tentatrice (1926), but he also appeared in such comedies as Adam and Evil (1927) and On Ze Boulevard (1927). He developed a revue he took to Broadway in 1928, called "The Greatest Array of Talent Ever Assembled on Any Bill in This Country", which consisted of singers, dancers, and D'Arcy himself walking out into the audience and telling stories of his travels around the world.
D'Arcy easily made the transitions from silents to talkies, and played a succession of exotic foreigners, both villainous and otherwise. However, as acting styles changed because of the introduction of sound, D'Arcy's somewhat florid style went out of fashion, and in a few years he was reduced to doing small, low-budget pictures for lower-rung independent studios, such as Broadway to Cheyenne (1932) for Monogram and Discarded Lovers (1932) for Tower Pictures. He had a showier role in a serial for Mascot, L'Aigle de la mort (1932), starring a young John Wayne, and in his second serial, The Whispering Shadow (1933) with Bela Lugosi, he seemed to be having a ball as an executive in a trucking firm suspected of being responsible for the company's trucks being constantly hijacked.
Over the next few years he played villainous roles in a number of low-budget productions (Revolt of the Zombies (1936), Captain Calamity (1936), Under Strange Flags (1937)), but his final film was a major one, the Ginger Rogers/Fred Astaire musical La grande farandole (1939), after which he retired. He then started his own real estate business. He died in 1969.
Because of the success of that film, D'Arcy was thrown into several other productions as the head villain, such as Graustark (1925), La Bohème (1926) and La tentatrice (1926), but he also appeared in such comedies as Adam and Evil (1927) and On Ze Boulevard (1927). He developed a revue he took to Broadway in 1928, called "The Greatest Array of Talent Ever Assembled on Any Bill in This Country", which consisted of singers, dancers, and D'Arcy himself walking out into the audience and telling stories of his travels around the world.
D'Arcy easily made the transitions from silents to talkies, and played a succession of exotic foreigners, both villainous and otherwise. However, as acting styles changed because of the introduction of sound, D'Arcy's somewhat florid style went out of fashion, and in a few years he was reduced to doing small, low-budget pictures for lower-rung independent studios, such as Broadway to Cheyenne (1932) for Monogram and Discarded Lovers (1932) for Tower Pictures. He had a showier role in a serial for Mascot, L'Aigle de la mort (1932), starring a young John Wayne, and in his second serial, The Whispering Shadow (1933) with Bela Lugosi, he seemed to be having a ball as an executive in a trucking firm suspected of being responsible for the company's trucks being constantly hijacked.
Over the next few years he played villainous roles in a number of low-budget productions (Revolt of the Zombies (1936), Captain Calamity (1936), Under Strange Flags (1937)), but his final film was a major one, the Ginger Rogers/Fred Astaire musical La grande farandole (1939), after which he retired. He then started his own real estate business. He died in 1969.
