William B. Davidson
actor
- Birth name:
- William Beatman Davidson
- Born:
- 1888-06-16, Dobbs Ferry, New York, USA
- Died:
- 1947-09-28, Santa Monica, California, USA
- Professions:
- actor
Biography
A Hudson River baby—June 16, 1888—William B. Davidson first drew breath in Dobbs Ferry, New York, and spent the next fifty-nine years lending that breath to Hollywood. Between the twin triumphs of The Most Dangerous Game (1932) and I'm No Angel (1933), plus the velvet swirl of Lillian Russell (1940), he built a résumé of urbane authority: the voice you trusted even when the plot insisted you shouldn’t. Off-screen, two marriages—first to Helen Bolton, later to Mary Hellen Dorsey—wrote private scenes no camera ever caught. The final curtain fell on September 28, 1947, in Santa Monica, California, but the reels still spin, keeping Davidson forever poised at the edge of the frame, ready to steal another moment.
