Michael Rennie

The British actor Michael Rennie worked as a car salesman and factory manager before he turned to acting. A meeting with a Gaumont-British Studios casting director led to Rennie's first acting job - that of stand-in for Robert Young in Secret Agent (1936) directed by Alfred Hitchcock. He put his film career on hold for a few years to get some acting experience on the stage, working in repertory in York and Windsor.

Rennie joined the Royal Air Force in 1941, training as a fighter pilot in the US under the Arnold Plan. While at Napier Field in Dothan, AL, for his advanced flight training he was asked by a fellow trainee, Scotsman Jack Morton, what he did in civilian life. Rennie told Morton and the other pilots gathered around that he was a movie actor. They stared at him in disbelief, then broke out in a chorus of laughter. A couple of nights later Rennie and his classmates went into town to watch a movie, Ships with Wings (1941). Not long into the movie, and much to the surprise of those seated with him, Rennie appeared on the screen as Royal Navy pilot Lt. Maxwell.

Afterwards, he returned to films and achieved star status in I'll Be Your Sweetheart (1945).

Brought to Hollywood in 1950 and signed to a contract by studio head Darryl F.

Zanuck, Rennie was cast in arguably his most popular role as Klaatu in Day the Earth Stood Still, The (1951), when director Robert Wise's first choice, Claude Rains, was unavailable.

He was connected with the Titanic twice on screen. In 1953 he was the uncredited, off-screen narrator for Jean Negulesco's film Titanic (1953). Thirteen years later he played the role of Capt. Edward J. Smith (misidentified in the credits as Malcolm Smith) in the pilot episode of the television series The Time Tunnel (1966). Interestingly, this episode used tinted stock footage from the earlier film to tell the story of two time travelers who found themselves aboard the doomed ship.

After that he worked as a supporting actor for eight years until his return to England in 1959.

A heavy smoker, Rennie had respiratory problems for many years. During the run of the Broadway comedy "Mary, Mary" in the early 1960s, he was hospitalized several times; this did not prevent him from being hired to replay his role in the film version, Mary, Mary (1963). His voice was dubbed in The Battle of El Alamein (1969) due to his chronic health problems. Similarly, his own voice is not heard on the English-language dialogue track of his final film, Assignment Terror (1970).