Alexander D'Arcy
Encyclopedia
Alexander D'Arcy was an Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

ian actor with an international film repertoire.

Born Alexander Sarruf in Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

, Egypt, D'Arcy, variously credited as Alexandre D'Arcy, Alex D'Arcy, Alexandre Darcy and Alex d'Arcy appeared in some 45 films, mostly as a suave gentleman or smooth rogue. His first film appearance was in 1927 in The Garden of Allah, before appearing in Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...

's Champagne
Champagne (film)
Champagne is a silent comedy film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, based on an original story by English writer and critic Walter C. Mycroft...

(1928). He then went to Hollywood where he started by playing supporting roles in several films in the late 1930s including The Prisoner of Zenda
The Prisoner of Zenda (1937 film)
The Prisoner of Zenda is a 1937 black-and-white adventure film based on the Anthony Hope 1894 novel of the same name and the 1896 play. Of the many film adaptations, this is considered by many to be the definitive version....

(1937) Stolen Holiday (1937), The Awful Truth
The Awful Truth
The Awful Truth is a 1937 screwball comedy film starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant. The plot concerns the machinations of a soon-to-be-divorced couple, played by Dunne and Grant, who go to great lengths to try to ruin each other's romantic escapades...

(1937). In 1953, he was one of Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....

's suitors in How to Marry a Millionaire
How to Marry a Millionaire
How to Marry a Millionaire is a 1953 romantic comedy film made by 20th Century Fox, directed by Jean Negulesco and produced and written by Nunnally Johnson. The screenplay was based on the plays The Greeks Had a Word for It by Zoe Akins and Loco by Dale Eunson and Katherine Albert. The music score...

and featured in Abdulla the Great
Abdulla the Great
Abdulla the Great, also known as Abdullah's Harem is a 1955 comedy film made by Misr Universal Cairo and Sphinx Films and distributed by Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation. It was directed and produced by Gregory Ratoff, from a screenplay by Boris Ingster and George St. George, based on the...

and Soldier of Fortune
Soldier of Fortune (film)
Soldier of Fortune is a 1955 adventure film about the rescue of an American held prisoner in the People's Republic of China in the 1950s. It was directed by Edward Dmytryk, starred Clark Gable and Susan Hayward and was written by Ernest K...

in 1955.

His roles diminished in importance and by the 1960s he was acting mostly on television before resurfacing in horror films, notably It's Hot in Paradise (1962) and as Dracula in Blood of Dracula's Castle
Blood of Dracula's Castle
Blood of Dracula's Castle is a 1969 horror cult B-movie directed by Al Adamson.-Plot:Count Dracula and his vampire wife , hiding behind the pseudonyms of Count and Countess Townsend, lure girls to their castle in the Arizona desert to be drained of blood by their butler George , who then mixes...

(1969). Evidently a favorite of such cult directors as Roger Corman
Roger Corman
Roger William Corman is an American film producer, director and actor. He has mostly worked on low-budget B movies. Some of Corman's work has an established critical reputation, such as his cycle of films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and in 2009 he won an Honorary Academy Award for...

, Russ Meyer
Russ Meyer
Russell Albion "Russ" Meyer was a U.S. motion picture director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, actor and photographer....

 and Sam Fuller, D'Arcy was seen in Corman's St. Valentine's Day Massacre
St. Valentine's Day massacre
The Saint Valentine's Day massacre is the name given to the 1929 murder of 7 mob associates as part of a prohibition era conflict between two powerful criminal gangs in Chicago: the South Side Italian gang led by Al Capone and the North Side Irish gang led by Bugs Moran. Former members of the...

(1967), Meyer's The Seven Minutes
The Seven Minutes (film)
The Seven Minutes is 1971 drama film directed and produced by Russ Meyer. The film was based on the 1969 novel of the same name by Irving Wallace.-Plot:After a teenager who purchased the erotic novel The Seven Minutes is charged for rape, an...

(1971) and Fuller's Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street (1972).

He died in West Hollywood, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

.

External links

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