Mel Ferrer

Mel Ferrer

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Mel Ferrer
Film: South side of the 6200 block of Hollywood Boulevard
Actor | Director | Producer
Born Melchor Gaston Ferrer on Aug. 25, 1917 in Elberon, N.J.
Died June 2, 2008 in Santa Barbara, CA

Mel Ferrer was the tall, darkly handsome star of such classic films as "Lili," "War and Peace" and "The Sun Also Rises," as well as producer and director of movies starring his then-wife, Audrey Hepburn.

He began his acting career as a dancer in Broadway musicals. He acted in plays and on radio and directed a Hollywood movie, "Girl of the Limberlost." In 1947 he co-founded the La Jolla Playhouse with Gregory Peck and Dorothy McGuire.

In New York, he starred in the 1945-46 play "Strange Fruit," about a lynching in the South, and directed Jose Ferrer (no relation) in a 1946-47 production of "Cyrano de Bergerac."

His first major film role was in the 1949 film "Lost Boundaries," playing a light-skinned African American doctor who passed for white in a New Hampshire town.

Ferrer's commanding presence and well-modulated voice made him ideal for characters of certitude and decision. His films included "Rancho Notorious," "Scaramouche," "Knights of the Round Table" (as King Arthur), "Born to Be Bad," "The Longest Day," "The Fall of the Roman Empire," "The Sun Also Rises" and "El Greco," which was made in Spain with Ferrer as co-producer and actor in the title role.

In all, he appeared in more than 100 films and made-for-television movies, directed nine films and produced nine more. In the early 1980s he had a steady role on the CBS prime-time soap opera "Falcon Crest."

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