LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Adolphe Menjou
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From All Movie Guide: Debonair and sophisticated, Adolphe Menjou was an impeccably-dressed lead actor with a waxed black mustache. At age 21 he moved to New York with no intention of becoming an actor; three years later he drifted into films as an extra, then got some larger roles before serving as a captain in the Ambulance Corps for three years in World War I. Back in the U.S. Menjou returned to acting, playing supporting roles in a number of major productions. He became a star after playing the lead role in Charlie Chaplin's A Woman of Paris (1923), which established his screen persona: a dapper, suave man of the world. He went on to play this role in more than 100 films, at first as a leading man and later as a character actor. He made the transition to sound easily and received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his work in The Front Page (1931). He gained a reputation as one of the world's best-dressed men, a fact alluded to in the title of his autobiography, It Took Nine Tailors (1948).
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South American hotel magnate Edwardo Acuna (Adolphe Menjou) has a thorn in his side. Maria (Rita Hayworth), his beautiful nubile daughter, refuses to seriously consider marriage. A traditional patriarch, Mr. Acuna wants his girls married off one by one.
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Biography from Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia: He was known as the best-dressed man in Hollywood; yet for all his elegance, Adolphe Menjou made his strongest impression when he played against type. A Cornell graduate and trained engineer, Menjou was attracted to acting in 1916, first in vaudeville and later on the stage. He made his film debut in The Blue Envelope Mystery (1916) and, following service in World War 1 and a period of stage work, he clicked on-screen as Rudolph Valentino's friend in The Sheik and King Louis XIII in Douglas Fairbanks'The Three Musketeers (both 1921). In 1923 he was tapped by Charles Chaplin for the lead inA Woman of Paris which solidified his image as an impeccably dressed man of the world, and through the 1920s he made a string of popular films including The Marriage Circle (1924, for Ernst Lubitsch), The Sorrows of Satan (1925, as a dapper Devil) for D. W. Griffith, and A Gentleman of Paris (1927) for Chaplin's former codirector Harry D'Arrast. Menjou's starring career faltered with the arrival of sound, but he scored big as a world-weary army officer supporting Gary Cooper in Morocco (1930), and even received an Oscar nomination as roughand-tumble newspaper editor Walter Burns in The Front Page (1931). Through the 1930s Menjou seemed to alternate between playing urbane producers and harddrinking low-lifes.Morning Glory (1933), Stage Door and A Star Is Born (both 1937), among others, were in the former category; while Little Miss Marker (1934) and Golden Boy (1939) were in the latter.
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GETTING AWAY from comedy roles, Adolphe Menjou demonstrates his right to consideration as a serious actor in Paramount's version of Michael Arlen's "The Ace of Cads." To those who have regarded him purely as a light comedian, his touches of pathos come as a surprise. He handles an impossible role so well as to create a desire to see him in a story in which he will have a real chance. As in his first excursion into serious work, he is hampered by the character he must portray. That he makes Maturin so interesting is a personal triumph, for he seems to be hampered both by the role and the direction.
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Adolphe Menjou was born to a French-American family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on February 18th, 1890, and he graduated from a high school military academy and then Cornell University with an engineering degree. His father, a restauranteur, wanted Adolphe to continue in the family business, but a career in food did not interest him. His friends suggested he try some acting work and he enjoyed it, so he tried out for parts in vaudeville and film. Menjou found some bit parts in the fledgling film industry starting about 1912. After playing many supporting roles in silent movies, he took a break from his acting career to serve in the American Ambulance Corps during World War One. At the end of the war he went back to resurrect his screen career, and landed some starring parts in successful films, including the role of King Louis the Eighth in "The Three Musketeers" (1921) and the sophisticated French gentleman Pierre Revel in Charles Chaplin's "A Woman Of Paris" (1923).
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In 1947, Menjou cooperated with the House Committee on Un-American Activities in its hunt for Communists in Hollywood. Menjou was a leading member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a self-styled patriotic group formed to oppose Communist influence in Hollywood. Other members included Barbara Stanwyck (with whom he co-starred in Golden Boy in 1939) and her husband, actor Robert Taylor.
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