Sydney Greenstreet Biography

Fast Facts

• Left home at age 18 to make his fortune as a tea planter in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) but didn't succeed, and returned to England several years later
• Made British stage debut (as a murderer) in a 1902 Sherlock Holmes mystery
• Moved to New York several years later and performed steadily in the theater for more than three decades, beginning in 1905
• Made film debut in 1941's The Maltese Falcon—the first of nine collaborations with fellow character actor Peter Lorre (and five with Humphrey Bogart)
• Falcon also earned Greenstreet his only Oscar nomination
• Provided the voice of detective Nero Wolfe for two years on radio after retiring from films in 1949