British actor, and major British and American star, the softness of
whose voice often belied the steel in his character's soul. Though he
became respectable in Odd
Man Out (1947), it was in the Gainsborough
melodramas that Mason emerged as a star, ousting George
Formby from the top of the British popularity charts in 1943. The
Man in Grey (1943), Fanny
by Gaslight (1944), The
Seventh Veil (1945) and The
Wicked Lady (1945) established him in the vein of erotic and aristocratic
cruelty: most aristocratic in The Man in Grey and Fanny by Gaslight,
most cruel in The Seventh Veil and most erotic in The Wicked Lady, where
his taking of Margaret Lockwood is conducted
as a sexual transaction in which he is the loser.
Odd Man Out, directed by Carol
Reed, offered him a more culturally prestigious role in a quality
film. In 1949 he went to Hollywood, where he made two films with Max
Ophuls, Caught and The Reckless Moment (both 1949), played Rommel twice,
in The Desert Fox
(1951) and The Desert Rats (1953), played Brutus to Marlon Brando's
Anthony in Julius Caesar (1953), and starred with Judy Garland in A
Star is Born (1954). He returned to Britain in 1953 to make The
Man Between, again with Carol Reed. He continued to play significant
roles on both sides of the Atlantic until his death, winning a posthumous
UK Film Critics award in 1985 for his part in The
Shooting Party.
