With a narrow face, high forehead, large, piercing eyes, and a rough-edged voice, character actor Howard Vernon was well-suited to playing sinister villains. Over his long career, he worked on stage and screen throughout Europe. Though most frequently in co-starring and supporting roles, he occasionally starred in films, most memorably as Dr. Orloff in The Awful Dr. Orloff (1961) and its many sequels, and as the title protagonist in Fritz Lang's last film The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960). Born to a Swiss father and an American mother in Baden, Germany, Vernon studied drama in Berlin and Paris before taking his first professional stage bow in Un Ami Viendra Ce Soir (1945) -- later, he would reprise his role in the film version. Through the '50s, Vernon appeared in various types of dramas, but after 1960 was primarily relegated to playing villains in horror and science-fiction movies. One of his more notable roles of this period was that of Professor Leonard Nosferatu in Jean-Luc Godard's classic sci-fi drama Alphaville (1965). Occasionally, Vernon would appear in other types of films such as What's New Pussycat?(1965) and Woody Allen's Love and Death (1975). Vernon made his last film appearance in Le Complexe de Toulon (1996).
by Sandra Brennan
biography
