Ian Wolfe appeared in more than 200 films, and we have reviewed two of them without once mentioning him, which is close to what he was for: the clerk, the doctor, the minister, an American who sounded English and looked old long before he was.
Fi1m perspective
Watch Charles Laughton's barrister in Witness for the Prosecution (1957) and there is a man at his elbow, Carter, the clerk, handing him what he needs and saying little. That is Ian Wolfe. He was in The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) too, as Harry Bevan, in the same house as Laughton's soft-spoken tyrant of a father. In neither review did we single him out. We suspect he would have taken that as the job done.
He came from the stage, with a Broadway debut in The Claw in 1919 alongside Lionel Barrymore, and did not make a film until he was 38, recreating his stage part in Barretts. The diction he brought with him got him cast as Englishmen for the rest of his life, though he was born in Illinois, and as the sort of men who own a desk: butlers, ministers, doctors, judges, professors. He looked older than he was from early on, which let him play the elderly and the paternal while still fairly young, and then simply carry on. Maggs in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Dr Minton in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), a part in George Lucas's THX 1138 (1971), a forger in Dick Tracy (1990): more than 200 films and about as many television episodes, across seven decades.
What he did well is hard to describe, and that is the description. We went back to Witness for the Prosecution to look for him and were faintly embarrassed to find we still could not say what he had done in it, only that Laughton seemed to have everything to hand and never had to ask twice. That is not nothing. A film full of stars needs people who can stand next to them without pulling focus, and Wolfe did it in drama and in science fiction, for longer than most leading careers last. His own account was the best one: "I was the dust that made them twinkle."
We cannot tell you that any single Wolfe performance is worth seeking out on its own. The two we have reviewed are worth your evening for Laughton, and he would not have argued. But the next time a butler or a bishop in an old black-and-white film seems always to have been there, look at the face. It is probably his.
Biography
Ian Wolfe (4 November 1896 – 23 January 1992) was an American character actor. Born in Canton, Illinois, he began his career on stage and made his film debut in The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934), recreating a Broadway role. His stage experience gave him precise diction, and he was frequently cast as Englishmen.
Wolfe appeared in hundreds of films and television productions over seven decades. His credits include Rebel Without a Cause (1955) as Dr Minton, Witness for the Prosecution (1957) as Carter, THX 1138 (1971) as PTO, and Dick Tracy (1990) as Forger. He also appeared in episodes of Star Trek (1966) as Septimus and Mr Atoz, and The Twilight Zone (1959). He was a veteran of the First World War, serving as a medical sergeant.
Wolfe and his wife Elizabeth had two daughters. He self-published two volumes of poetry.
