Dennis King

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King, Dennis [né Pratt] (1897–1971), actor and singer. While best remembered as the leading man of many 1920s operettas, the handsome, English‐born King was a versatile performer who enjoyed a long and varied career. His earliest professional assignment was as a callboy with the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. He rose rapidly in the company to stage manager and finally actor. He came to America in 1921 to play the Marquis de Trois Fleurs in Clair de Lune, but first called prominent attention to himself when he essayed Mercutio to Jane Cowl's Juliet in 1923 and became a star the following year when he took the role of Jim Kenyon in Rose‐Marie. This was followed by two more popular roles in Rudolf Friml operettas, Françcois Villon in The Vagabond King (1925) and D'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers (1928). Among his other notable performances were as Peter Ibbetson (1931), Ravenal in a 1932 revival of Show Boat, the sex‐hungry telegraph operator Dascom Dinsmore in Petticoat Fever (1934), Dr. Rank in A Doll's House (1937), Willie Palaffi in I Married an Angel (1938), Vershinin in The Three Sisters (1942), the fence‐straddling diplomat Alexander Hazen in The Searching Wind (1944), General Burgoyne in The Devil's Disciple (1950), Captain Vere in Billy Budd (1951), Bruno Mahler in Music in the Air (1951), and the boozy Judge Sullivan in Lunatics and Lovers (1954). His last success was as the writer's alter ego Sam Elderly in Photo Finish (1963), and his last appearance was as the homosexual Baron von Epp in A Patriot for Me (1969).