Mel Ferrer was an American actor, film director and film producer.
Early life Ferrer was born Melchor Gastón Ferrer in
the Elberon section of Long Branch, New Jersey, of Cuban and Irish descent. His father, Dr.
José María Ferrer, was born in Cuba, of Spanish ancestry, and was an authority on
pneumonia and served as chief of staff of St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City. His
American mother, the former Mary Matilda Irene O'Donohue, was a daughter of coffee broker
Joseph J. O'Donohue, New York's City Commissioner of Parks, a founder of the Coffee Exchange,
and a founder of the Brooklyn-New York Ferry. An ardent opponent of Prohibition, Irene Ferrer
was named, in 1934, the New York State chairman of the Citizens Committee for Sane Liquor
Laws. Ferrer had three siblings. His elder sister
was Dr. M. Irené Ferrer, a cardiologist and educator, who helped refine the cardiac catheter
and electrocardiogram. His brother, Dr. Jose M. Ferrer, was a surgeon. His other sister,
Teresa Ferrer, was the religion editor of The New York Herald Tribune and education
editor of Newsweek. The family is not related to actors José or Miguel Ferrer.
His mother's family, the O'Donohues, were prominent Roman Catholics. Mel Ferrer's aunt,
Marie Louise O'Donohue was named a papal countess, and his mother's sister, Teresa Riley O'Donohue,
a leading figure in American Catholic charities and welfare organizations, was granted permission
by Pope Pius XI to install a private chapel in her New York City apartment.
Ferrer was privately educated at the Bovée School in New York and Canterbury Prep School
in Connecticut before attending Princeton University until his sophomore year, at which
time he dropped out to devote more time to acting. He also worked as an editor of a small
Vermont newspaper and wrote a children's book, Tito's Hats.
Career
Ferrer began acting in summer stock as a teenager and in 1937 won the Theatre Intime award for
best new play by a Princeton undergraduate; the play was called Awhile to Work and co-starred
another college student, Frances Pilchard, who would become Ferrer's first wife that
same year. At age twenty-one, he was appearing on the Broadway stage as a chorus dancer,
making his debut there as an actor two years later. After a bout with polio, Ferrer worked
as a disc jockey in Texas and Arkansas and moved to Mexico to work on a novel. He then
was contracted to Columbia Pictures as a director along with several other "potentials" who
began as dialogue directors: Fred Sears, William Castle, Henry Levin and Robert Gordon.
Eventually, he returned to Broadway, where he directed the 1946 stage production of Cyrano
de Bergerac, in which Jose Ferrer first appeared in the role, then became involved in motion
pictures, directing more than ten feature films and acting in more than eighty. As a
producer, he had notable success with the well-regarded film Wait Until Dark, starring
Audrey Hepburn. In 1945, Ferrer made a modest directing debut with The Girl of the Limberlost,
a low-budget black-and-white film for Columbia. He returned to Broadway to star in Strange
Fruit, based on the novel by Lillian Smith. He made his screen acting debut in Lost Boundaries,
and as a film actor is best remembered for his roles as the injured puppeteer in the
musical Lili, as the villainous Marquis de Maynes in Scaramouche and as Prince Andrei
in War and Peace. Ferrer never achieved major stardom and later
turned towards television, doing some directing for the series The Farmer's Daughter starring
Inger Stevens, but is best remembered in television work for his role opposite Jane Wyman as Angela
Channing's attorney and briefly, her husband, Phillip Erikson, in Falcon Crest, as well
as directing a few of the series episodes. He also played a blackmailing paparazzi reporter
in the Columbo episode "Requiem for a Fallen Star" and a few years later in 1979 Dr. Brogli
in an episode of Return of the Saint. For his contributions to the motion picture
industry, Mel Ferrer has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6268 Hollywood Blvd.
Personal life Ferrer was married five times. His wives were:
Frances Gunby Pilchard, an actress who became a sculptor; daughter of Sewell Norris Pilchard
Jr, a physician, and his wife, the former Louise Collier Gunby. They married in 1937
and divorced in 1939. Barbara C. Tripp. They married in 1940 and
later divorced. They had two children: a daughter, Mela Ferrer and a son, Christopher Ferrer.
Frances Ferrer, who had been his first wife. This marriage, which took place in 1944, also
ended in divorce. They had two children: Pepa Philippa Ferrer and Mark Young Ferrer.
Audrey Hepburn, the actress, to whom he was married from 1954 until 1968. They had one
child, a son, Sean Hepburn Ferrer. Elizabeth Soukhotine, whom he married in 1971.
Before his marriage to Elizabeth Soukhotine in 1971, Ferrer also had a relationship with
29-year-old interior designer Tessa Kennedy Death
A resident of Carpinteria, California, Ferrer died of heart failure at a convalescent home
in Santa Barbara on June 2, 2008. He was 90 years old.
Filmography As Actor:
The Fugitive Lost Boundaries
Born to Be Bad The Brave Bulls
Rancho Notorious Scaramouche
Lili Knights of the Round Table
Saadia Proibito
Oh... Rosalinda!! War and Peace
Paris Does Strange Things The Vintage
The Sun Also Rises Fräulein
The World, the Flesh, and the Devil Blood and Roses
Ladies Man The Hands of Orlac
Love, Freedom and Treachery Charge of the Black Lancers
The Devil and the Ten Commandments The Longest Day
Who Are My Own Paris When It Sizzles
The Fall of the Roman Empire Sex and the Single Girl
El Greco Wait Until Dark
A Time for Loving Columbo: Requiem for a falling star
The Girl from the Red Cabaret The Antichrist
Brannigan Silent Action
The Suspicious Death of a Minor The Net
The Black Corsair Eaten Alive
Gangbuster The Pajama Girl Case
Seagulls Fly Low Hi-Riders
The Norseman Yesterday's Tomorrow
The Fifth Floor Immorality
Screamers The Visitor
Guyana: Crime of the Century The Big Alligator River
Vultures on the City Doomed to Die
Nightmare City Lili Marleen
Mille milliards de dollars (fr) Deadly Game
A Soft Sunset Peter the Great
Dream West Eye of the Widow
Catherine the Great As DirectorDialogue Coach:
Louisiana Hayride They Live in Fear
Sergeant Mike Together Again
Meet Miss Bobby Socks Let's Go Steady
Ten Cents a Dance Boston Blackie's Rendezvous
A Thousand and One Nights The Girl of the Limberlost
The Fugitive The Secret Fury
Vendetta The Racket
Macao Green Mansions
Caper Notes
External links Mel Ferrer, a Reluctant Movie Star, Dies at
90 Mel Ferrer at the Internet Movie Database
Mel Ferrer at the TCM Movie Database Mel Ferrer at the Internet Broadway Database