Sanders, Who Was Literally Bored To Death

 

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Perennial supporting actor George Sanders  

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Megan  McKinney

 

Actor George Sanders sang, he wrote books, and he was born in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire, with personal tsarist connections. There was a great deal we didn’t know about this favorite on-screen cad.  Maybe some of it will be new to you as well. Let’s find out.

 

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Marilyn Monroe with George Sanders

Above is Mr. Sanders  with Marilyn Monroe in All About Eve, in which she had a small but memorable early role. George Sanders, however, won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his noteworthy performance as theater critic Addison DeWitt.

 

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Bette Davis and Gary Merrill

All About Eve was a huge film of 1950, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starring Bette Davis in a glamous new hairstyle, with actor Gary Merrill, a surprise to most viewers, as her fiancé.  It turned out to be great casting, when Gary quickly became  Bette’s real life fiancé. They married in July 1950, adopted a couple of children, and were together for nearly a decade.

 

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George Sanders, Joan Fontaine and Judith Anderson

Another great mid-century film in which George Sanders stood out was Rebecca, made from a 1938 best-selling Daphne du Maurier novel.  The movie was a biggie, produced by David O. Selznick, with Alfred Hitchcock as director and Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine in the leading roles. However, in the opinion of some viewers, the supporting actors, Mr. Sanders, as Jack Favell, and Judith Anderson as the unforgettable Mrs. Danvers, ran away with show.  

 

 

We became so interested in the real George Sanders, we dug out the above autobiography, acquired at a Newberry Library used book sale a few years ago, and several other sources, though not A Dreadful Man,  Brian Aherne’s take on Mr. Sanders, below. 

 

 

For a Hollywood personality, George Sanders had the usual number of wives (four). After nine years of marriage to a Susan Larson, he was wed to Zsa Zsa Gabor from 1949 to 1954. 

 

George and Zsa Zsa Sanders

 

Then he married Ronald Coleman’s widow, Benita Hume. It was a happy marriage, which would last until her 1967 death from bone cancer.   

Benita Hume

 

Finally, he spent 32 days as one of the six  husbands of Zsa Zsa’s big sister, Magda Gabor.  Thirty-two days that sped by so rapidly we couldn’t obtain an accurate  photo of her.  However, below is one of George in the latter days. 

 

 

We will end with the key portion of George Sanders’ famous suicide note.

“Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. Good Luck.”

 

Author photo: Robert F. Carl