Adolphe Jean Menjou (1890-1963) was born in Pittsburgh, but for almost fifty years he epitomized a type of continental sophistication on the screen.
Menjou made his debut in 1914 for the Vitagraph Company and within a few years had become a supporting player of note, appearing in films as prestigious as The Three Musketeers (playing the King) and The Sheik (both 1921).
Menjou’s role as the seducer in Chaplin’s A Woman of Paris (1923) was the template for the kind of philandering, morally-questionable characters he made his speciality. He was never the leading man, but always brought considerable added value to the films he was in. His sole Oscar nomination was for playing Walter Burns in The Front Page (1931).
Menjou was a leading Hollywood conservative, though arguably more nuanced in his views than some of his colleagues.
Adolphe Menjou’s greatest performance may have been one of his last, as the corrupt general in Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957). Much earlier, he had appeared, with typical suavity, in the 1930 version of New Moon.
