Harvey Braban

(b. Brighton, 19/05/1883 - d. Kensington, London, **/**/1943). British stage and film actor. Harvey Braban, apparently born George William Chapman, was a British actor particularly active on stage and in film during the 1920s and 1930s, appearing both in London's West End and on Broadway, including in theatres like Covent Garden, Drury Lane and the Savoy. When, in November 1922, he came to South Africa at short notice to take the part of the villain Simon Macquart opposite Molly Adair in Joseph Albrecht’s film adaptation of The Reef of Stars (1923), based on the novel by H. De Vere Stacpoole, he was already a well-established actor. The IMDb lists more than 40 movies for him, with his first role in Maurice Elvey's A Question of Trust (1920), and he frequently played authority figures, including the Chief Inspector in Alfred Hitchcock’s Blackmail (1929). His last film appearance was as Lord Salisbury in Herbert Wilcox’s Sixty Glorious Years (1938), but he also acted in some of the BBC’s earliest television plays, including a version of Karel Capek’s R.U.R. (1938). His son, Roger Braban (b. 1931), also became an actor. (FO)

(Notes: There is no birthdate listed for Harvey Braban on FreeBMD, but under “marriages” Harvey Braban and George William Chapman are both listed as being married in June 1930 to both Marjorie Lancaster and Margery E. Liddard. Curiously, the names of brides and grooms seem to be interchangeable. A Marjorie Lancaster was on the stage at about the same time as Harvey Braban.)