Dashing English actor, Ronald Colman, built his mansion in Playa Del Rey, on the sunny western slopes of what was then called Mount Ballona.
WWI veteran, Colman was seriously wounded by shrapnel in his ankle, which gave him a limp that he would attempt to hide throughout the rest of his acting career.
He became a very popular silent film star in both romantic and adventure films, and successfully made the transition to "talkies" because of his elegant and gentle speaking voice.
His first major talkie success was in 1930, when he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for two roles — Condemned and Bulldog Drummond. He thereafter appeared in a number of notable films including Raffles, The Masquerader, Clive of India, A Tale of Two Cities in 1935, Under Two Flags,The Prisoner of Zenda and Lost Horizon in 1937, If I Were King in 1938, and The Talk of the Town in 1941.
He won the Best Actor Oscar in 1948 for A Double Life.
Beginning in 1945, Colman made many guest appearances on The Jack Benny Program on radio, alongside his second wife, Benita Hume (1906-1967). Their comedy work as Benny's next-door neighbors led to their own radio comedy The Halls of Ivy from 1950 to 1952, and then on television from 1954 to 1955.
Ronald Colman died on 19 May 1958, aged 67, from a lung infection in Santa Barbara, California and was interred in the Santa Barbara Cemetery. He had a daughter, Juliet, by his second wife.
He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for motion pictures at 6801 Hollywood Blvd. and one for television at 1625 Vine Street. Hollywood actor Christopher Walken, whose original first name was Ronald, was named after Ronald Colman.
Ronald Colman's best-acting award for A Double Life, sold at Christie's last year for $174,500, although the academy has long tried to impose restrictions on how and where Oscars can be sold.
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