Godfrey Tearle

The half-brother of silent film matinee idol Conway Tearle, American actor Godfrey Tearle was raised in England, where he made his stage bow at age 9 in the company of his actor parents. Not as good-looking or charismatic as sibling Conway, Godfrey nonetheless enjoyed a longer and more rewarding career as a character player. Having made his film debut in 1908, Tearle acted in films in both Hollywood and England, seldom getting more than ten minutes' footage but always making a strong impression. He was the ostensibly above-reproach "landed gentry" who turned out to be the head of a spy ring in Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1935) and despite his advanced years was given the leading role as a gallant RAF pilot in One of Our Aircraft is Missing (1941). One of Sir Godfrey Tearle's best remembered roles was as Franklin D. Roosevelt in MGM's 1946 account of the Manhattan Project, The Beginning of the End. Tearle was a last minute replacement for Lionel Barrymore, whose outspoken anti-FDR stance had prompted Roosevelt's widow Eleanor to refuse Barrymore permission to portray her husband.

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide