Steven Geray

Biography

Steven Geray, born István Gyergyai in Ungvár in Austria-Hungary in 1904 and dying in Los Angeles in 1973, was a Hungarian-born character actor who built his career in the United States. He worked across stage, film and television, and his face is familiar to fans of film noir and of Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s.

He studied at the University of Budapest and first performed at the Hungarian National Theater under his own name. In 1934 he reached the London stage as Steven Geray, and from 1935 he began appearing in English-language films. That same year he shared the cast of Dance Band with his wife, Magda Kun. His act at the Folies Bergère, which impersonated Hitler and Mussolini, drew the anger of the German and Italian governments; after being beaten, he left for Hollywood in 1941.

In America he found a niche in crime and adventure pictures and, above all, in film noir, appearing in more than a dozen genre titles. He led the cast of So Dark the Night (1946), a low-budget noir by Joseph H. Lewis that received positive reviews. His most remembered parts are supporting roles: Dr. Graff in Spellbound, Uncle Pio in Gilda, and the hotel clerk in To Catch a Thief for Hitchcock.

He kept working in television and film into the 1960s, with appearances on Perry Mason and The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show. His legacy is that of a reliable working performer, present on screen in his era without becoming a star.

Key films

• Spellbound (1945): Dr. Graff, in Hitchcock's psychological thriller.
• Gilda (1946): Uncle Pio, in Charles Vidor's film noir.
• All About Eve (1950): the captain of waiters, in Mankiewicz's backstage drama.
• Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953): the hotel manager, in Hawks's musical comedy.
• To Catch a Thief (1955): the hotel desk clerk, in Hitchcock's thriller.