Henry Brandon

Henry Brandon was an American film and stage character actor who specialized in playing a wide diversity of ethnic roles. He was born in Berlin, Germany in 1912 as Heinrich von Kleinbach, and moved to the U.S. with his parents when he was an infant. He developed an early interest in acting and studied at the Pasadena Community Playhouse and later on Broadway. He made his film debut in 1932 as an uncredited spectator in The Sign of the Cross, and soon landed the lead villain role of Silas Barnaby in Laurel and Hardy's Babes in Toyland (1934). He adopted the stage name of Henry Brandon in 1936 and continued to play various villains and ethnic characters in films and serials, such as Fu Manchu in Drums of Fu Manchu (1940), Renouf in Beau Geste (1939), Major Ruck in Edge of Darkness (1943), Giles de Rais in Joan of Arc (1948), M'Tara in Tarzan and the She-Devil (1953), and Captain Danette in Vera Cruz (1954). He is perhaps best remembered for his role as Scar, the Comanche chief who kidnaps Natalie Wood's character in John Ford's The Searchers (1956). He also appeared in many television shows, such as Perry Mason, The Twilight Zone, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, and The A-Team. He was openly gay and had a long-term relationship with actor Mark Herron, with whom he adopted a son. He died of heart failure in Los Angeles in 1990 at the age of 77. ¹