Ralph Forbes (born Ralph Forbes Taylor; 30 September 1904 – 31 March 1951) was an English film and stage actor active in Britain and the United States.
Ralph Forbes | |
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Born | Ralph Forbes Taylor 30 September 1904 Wandsworth, London, England |
Died | 31 March 1951 New York City, U.S. | (aged 46)
Occupation | Actor |
Years active | 1923–1950 |
Spouses | Dora Sayers (m. 1946) |
Parent |
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Relatives | Brenda Forbes (sister) |
Forbes was born in Wandsworth, London, the son of Ernest John "E.J." and Ethel Louise Taylor. His mother would become known as Mary Forbes, a stage and film actress. His younger sister was actress Brenda Forbes (born Dorothy Brenda Taylor). Born on 30 September 1904, Forbes was baptized on 6 November[1] and his birth was legally registered with the authorities during the last quarter of 1904.[2]
Forbes met with an accident while playing football at Denstone College in Staffordshire which resulted in a scar on his cheek.[3] He came to the United States as a member of a British troupe that performed Havoc, a war play.[4] He started off in films, then went on stage.
In the United States he appeared onstage opposite actress Ruth Chatterton, whom he wed on 20 December 1924 in New York City.[5] He was 20 years old and she was four days shy of her 32nd birthday. The couple divorced in 1932. He married actress Heather Angel in Yuma, Arizona,[6] on 29 August 1934; that marriage ended in divorce on 18 July 1941.[7] His last wife, whom he married in 1946, was actress Dora Sayers.[8]
Following a film career that spanned from 1926 to 1944,[9] Forbes’s latter years were given to working on the Broadway stage. One of his last stage appearances was in a revival of Shaw's You Never Can Tell in 1948. He died at Montefiore Hospital in The Bronx, New York, in 1951, aged 46.[8]