Adolphe Menjou Biography

Fast Facts

• Named the Best Dressed Man in America several times during his career, and once jokingly claimed that he had no competition
• Served as a captain of the Ambulance Corps during World War I
• Graduated from Cornell University with an engineering degree
• Helped run his father's restaurant in New York City for a time while he sought to establish himself as a professional actor
• Quote: "(On acting as a business): "Of course it is a business, but no business is successful unless one's heart is in it․ I claim no producer, actor or director ever made a good picture in which he didn't believe․""
• Often cast as suave, debonair, man-about-town characters, and his look was never complete without his trademark waxy black mustache
• Best known for his roles in "The Front Page," "The Sheik," and "A Woman of Paris․"
• Came across so well as a Frenchman in his silent film roles that many critics and audience members were surprised to hear his flawless English for the first time in the 1929 talkie "Fashions in Love․"