Who is your favorite swashbuckler? A list of the best and the movies where they buckled swash!
by Rheli | created - 2 weeks ago | updated - 2 weeks ago | PublicA list of the best swashbucklers and their films from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Be sure to see them all! (Actually this includes period pieces in general, not limited to swashbucklers, but most of them are!)
1. Rudolph Valentino
Actor | The Eagle
Hollywood's original Latin Lover, a term that was invented for Rudolph Valentino by Hollywood moguls. Alla Nazimova's friend Natacha Rambova (nee Winifred Hudnut) became romantically involved with Rudy and they lived together in her bungalow from 1921 (during the filming of Camille) until they ...
Revered by women, reviled by "real men".
The Sheik, Blood and Sand, Monsieur Beaucaire, The Eagle, The Son of the Sheik
2. Ronald Colman
Actor | A Double Life
British leading man of primarily American films, one of the great stars of the Golden Age. Raised in Ealing, the son of a successful silk merchant, he attended boarding school in Sussex, where he discovered amateur theatre. He intended to attend Cambridge and become an engineer, but his father's ...
Literate and charming
Beau Geste, Clive of India, A Tale of Two Cities, Under Two Flags, The Prisoner of Zenda, If I Were King, The Light that Failed, Kismet
3. Robert Donat
Actor | The 39 Steps
Robert Donat's pleasant voice and somewhat neutral English accent were carefully honed as a boy because he had a stammer and took elocution lessons starting at age 11 to overcome the impediment. It was not too surprising that freedom from such a vocal embarrassment was encouragement to act. His ...
Urbane and English
The Count of Monte Cristo (1934), and turned down Captain Blood
4. Gary Cooper
Actor | High Noon
Born to Alice Cooper and Charles Cooper. Gary attended school at Dunstable school England, Helena Montana and Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa (then called Iowa College). His first stage experience was during high school and college. Afterwards, he worked as an extra for one year before getting a ...
Brought the character into himself
Beau Sabreur, The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, Souls at Sea, Adventures of Marco Polo, The Real Glory, Unconquered
5. Tyrone Power
Actor | Witness for the Prosecution
Tyrone Power was one of the great romantic swashbuckling stars of the mid-twentieth century, and the third Tyrone Power of four in a famed acting dynasty reaching back to the eighteenth century. His great-grandfather was the first Tyrone Power (1795-1841), a famed Irish comedian. His father, known ...
Long-time swashbuckler in chief for 20th Century-Fox, famous as Zorro
Marie Antoinette, Suez, The Mark of Zorro, Blood and Sand, Son of Fury, The Black Swan, Captain from Castile, Prince of Foxes, The Black Rose, King of the Khyber Rifles
6. Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
Actor | The Rise of Catherine the Great
Although he appeared in approximately 100 movies or TV shows, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. never really intended to take up acting as a career. However, the environment he was born into and the circumstances naturally led him to be a thespian. Noblesse oblige.
He was born Douglas Elton Fairbanks, Jr. in ...
Carried on his father's swashbuckling tradition.
The Prisoner of Zenda, Gunga Din, Rulers of the Sea, The Corsican Brothers, Sinbad the Sailor, The Exile, The Fighting O'Flynn
7. Louis Hayward
Actor | And Then There Were None
From his birthplace in South Africa, Louis Charles Hayward was brought to England and was educated there and on the Continent. He spent a short time managing a London nightclub, displayed some acting talent and decided on acting, and was quickly tapped by playwright Noël Coward, who became his ...
A noted swordsman
Anthony Adverse, The Man in the Iron Mask, The Son of Monte Cristo, The Return of Monte Cristo, The Black Arrow, The Pirates of Capri, Fortunes of Captain Blood, Captain Pirate, The Lady and the Bandit, The Lady in the Iron Mask
8. Jon Hall
Actor | The Invisible Man's Revenge
Handsome, athletic leading man Jon Hall was the son of actor Felix Locher and a Tahitian princess. Hall was married three times, two of which were to entertainers: singer Frances Langford and actress Raquel Torres. His third wife was a psychiatrist. They married in 1969 and lived in Los Angeles ...
In a series of pictures with the lovely Maria Montez for Universal.
Arabian Nights, White Savage, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Cobra Woman, Gypsy Wildcat, Sudan
9. Cornel Wilde
Actor | The Greatest Show on Earth
Cornel Wilde was born Kornel Lajos Weisz on October 13, 1912 in Prievidza, Hungary (now part of Slovakia) to a Jewish family. In 1920, he immigrated to New York City with his parents, Rayna (Vid) and Vojtech Béla Weisz, and elder sister, Edith. His family Anglicized their names. Kornel took the ...
On the 1936 Olympic fencing team
A Thousand and One Nights, The Bandit of Sherwood Forest, Forever Amber, At Sword's Point/Sons of the Musketeers, Treasure of the Golden Condor, The Scarlet Coat, Star of India, Omar Khayyam, Sword of Lancelot, The Fifth Musketeer, The Norseman
10. Bob Hope
Actor | The Ghost Breakers
Comedian Bob Hope was born Leslie Townes Hope in Eltham, London, England, the fifth of seven sons of Avis (Townes), light opera singer, and William Henry Hope, a stonemason from Weston-super-Mare, Somerset. His maternal grandmother was Welsh. Hope moved to Bristol before emigrating with his parents...
A joker in this deck of stars, Bob spoofed the swashbuckling genre.
The Princess and the Pirate, Monsieur Beaucaire, Casanova's Big Night
11. Alan Ladd
Actor | Shane
Alan Walbridge Ladd was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, the only child of Ina Raleigh (aka Selina Rowley) and Alan Harwood Ladd, a freelance accountant. His mother was English, from County Durham. His father died when he was four. At age five, he burned his apartment playing with matches, and his ...
Although more of a film noir expert, sidestepped into a couple.
Two Years Before the Mast, The Iron Mistress
12. Victor Mature
Actor | The Robe
American leading man Victor John Mature was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Clara P. (Ackley) and Marcellus George Mature, a cutler and knife sharpener. His father, born Marcello Gelindo Maturi in Pinzolo, Trentino, was Italian, and his mother was of Swiss-German and German descent. Mature worked ...
A brawny brand of heroism, more in ancient spectacles
Samson and Delilah, Androcles and the Lion, The Robe, The Veils of Bagdad, Demetrius and the Gladiators, The Egyptian, Zarak, The Bandit of Zhobe, Timbuktu, Hannibal, The Tartars
13. Stewart Granger
Actor | King Solomon's Mines
Stewart Granger was born James Lablache Stewart in London, the great grandson of the opera singer Luigi Lablache. He attended Epsom College but left after deciding not to pursue a medical degree. He decided to try acting and attended Webber-Douglas School of Dramatic Art, London. By 1935, he made ...
An excellent fencer from Britain
British films: The Man in Grey, Madonna of the Seven Moons, Caesar and Cleopatra, The Magic Bow, Captain Boycott, Saraband.
For MGM: Scaramouche, The Prisoner of Zenda, Young Bess, Beau Brummell, Moonfleet, Swordsman of Siena
14. Burt Lancaster
Actor | From Here to Eternity
Burt Lancaster, one of five children, was born in Manhattan, to Elizabeth (Roberts) and James Henry Lancaster, a postal worker. All his grandparents were immigrants from the north of Ireland. He was a tough street kid who took an early interest in gymnastics. He joined the circus as an acrobat and ...
Only two entries from this famous actor who added an acrobatic flavor to the genre
The Flame and the Arrow, The Crimson Pirate
15. Gregory Peck
Actor | To Kill a Mockingbird
Eldred Gregory Peck was born on April 5, 1916 in La Jolla, California, to Bernice Mae (Ayres) and Gregory Pearl Peck, a chemist and druggist in San Diego. He had Irish (from his paternal grandmother), English, and some German, ancestry. His parents divorced when he was five years old. An only child...
A more sophisticated exemplar
Captain Horatio Hornblower, David and Bathsheba, Moby Dick
16. Robert Taylor
Actor | The Bribe
Born Spangler Arlington Brugh, Robert Taylor began displaying a diversity of talents in his youth on the plains of Nebraska. At Beatrice High School, he was a standout track athlete, but also showed a talent for using his voice, winning several oratory awards. He was a musician and played the cello...
The MGM star of the 1950s
Quo Vadis, Ivanhoe, Knights of the Round Table, Quentin Durward
17. Tony Curtis
Actor | Some Like It Hot
Tony Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz, the eldest of three children of Helen (Klein) and Emanuel Schwartz, Jewish immigrants from Hungary. Curtis himself admits that while he had almost no formal education, he was a student of the "school of hard knocks" and learned from a young age that the only ...
Star of Universal's second wave Arabian Nights adventures
The Prince Who Was a Thief, The Son of Ali Baba, The Black Shield of Falworth, The Purple Mask, The Vikings, Spartacus, Taras Bulba
18. John Derek
Actor | The Ten Commandments
John Derek was born on August 12, 1926 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor and director, known for The Ten Commandments (1956), Ghosts Can't Do It (1989) and Bolero (1984). He was married to Bo Derek, Linda Evans, Ursula Andress and Pati Behrs. He died on May 22, 1998 in ...
Today probably better remembered as the ex of Bo Derek, made three for Columbia and continued with more after that, including for DeMille
Columbia: Rogues of Sherwood Forest, Mask of the Avenger, Prince of Pirates
Later: The Adventures of Hajii Baba, The Ten Commandments, Omar Khayyam
19. Richard Greene
Actor | The Hound of the Baskervilles
Before achieving his greatest fame in the 1950s as television's "Robin Hood", handsome Richard Greene had a significant if largely unremarkable film career, turning in several skillful leading man performances in the late 1930s before becoming type-cast in routine costume adventures. Like his ...
Probably most famous for his Robin Hood television series, but he made plenty of films.
Forever Amber, The Sword of Sherwood Forest, The Fighting O'Flynn, The Desert Hawk, Lorna Doone, The Black Castle, Captain Scarlett, Bandits of Corsica, Shadow of the Eagle
20. Kirk Douglas
Actor | The Final Countdown
Cleft-chinned, steely-eyed and virile star of international cinema who rose from being "the ragman's son" (the name of his best-selling 1988 autobiography) to become a bona fide superstar, Kirk Douglas, also known as Issur Danielovitch Demsky, was born on December 9, 1916 in Amsterdam, New York. ...
Only three for this famous actor, but all excellent
Ulysses, The Vikings, Spartacus
21. Charlton Heston
Actor | Ben-Hur
With features chiseled in stone, and renowned for playing a long list of historical figures, particularly in Biblical epics, the tall, well-built and ruggedly handsome Charlton Heston was one of Hollywood's top leading men of his prime and remained active in front of movie cameras for over sixty ...
After portraying Moses, got lots of epic roles.
The Ten Commandments, The Buccaneer, Ben-Hur, El Cid, 55 Days at Peking, The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Agony and the Ecstasy, The War Lord, Khartoum, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, The Three Musketeers, The Four Musketeers
22. Steve Reeves
Actor | Le fatiche di Ercole
Handsome bodybuilder Steve Reeves certainly had an enviable Herculean physique, and made plenty good use of it in Europe during the late 1950s and early 1960s portraying some of filmdom's most famous bronzed gods. Reeves was originally a Montana boy born on a cattle ranch in 1926. His destiny was ...
A former Mr. Universe and king of the European spectacle
Hercules, Goliath and the Barbarians, The Giant of Marathon, Hercules Unchained, The Last Days of Pompeii, The White Warrior, Morgan the Pirate, The Thief of Baghdad, The Trojan Horse, The Slave, Duel of the Titans, The Avenger, Sandokan the Great
23. Errol Flynn
Actor | The Adventures of Robin Hood
Errol Flynn was born to parents Theodore Flynn, a respected biologist, and Marrelle Young, an adventurous young woman. Young Flynn was a rambunctious child who could be counted on to find trouble. Errol managed to have himself thrown out of every school in which he was enrolled. In his late teens ...
The greatest of them all?
In the Wake of the Bounty, Captain Blood, The Charge of the Light Brigade, The Prince and the Pauper, Another Dawn, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Dawn Patrol, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, The Sea Hawk, Santa Fe Trail, They Died with Their Boots On, Northern Pursuit, San Antonio, Adventures of Don Juan, Kim, Adventures of Captain Fabian, Mara Maru, Against All Flags, The Master of Ballantrae, Crossed Swords, The Warriors
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