Ian Hunter

Ian Hunter (13 June 1900 – 22 September 1975) was a Cape Colony-born British actor of stage, film and television. Acting career On his return from military service Hunter studied under Elsie Fogerty at the Central School of Speech and Drama, then based in the Royal Albert Hall, London. Within two years he made his stage debut. He decided to work in British silent films taking a part in Not for Sale (1924) directed by W.P. Kellino for Stoll Pictures. Hunter made his first trip to the United States because Basil Dean, the British actor and director, was producing Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The School for Scandal at the Knickerbocker Theater. However, the production folded after one performance. He met the director Alfred Hitchcock in 1927 and was featured in Hitchcock's The Ring (1927) and stayed for Downhill (US: When Boys Leave Home, 1927) and Easy Virtue (1928), based on the Noël Coward play. By late 1928, he returned to Broadway for only a months run in the original comedy Olympia and stayed in America to work in Hollywood on Syncopation (1929) for RKO, his first sound film.