Carl Brisson

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Carl Brisson was a Danish actor and singer born Carl Frederik Ejnar Pedersen on 24 December 1893 in Copenhagen. Before acting, he was a prizefighter, winning Denmark’s amateur lightweight championship at 15 and later becoming a welterweight champion in Central Europe and Scandinavia. He changed his last name from Pedersen to Brisson, a family name on his mother's side.

Brisson began on stage as a dancer in 1916 and soon sang in night clubs and revues, touring South Africa and Sweden, and performing in London by 1921. He became popular in Britain, notably as Prince Danilo in The Merry Widow in 1923 and again in 1924, and appeared in Katja the Dancer and The Apache in London. He made his British screen debut in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Ring. He acted in 13 films from 1918 to 1935, including two Hitchcock silent films, and in the 1934 Murder at the Vanities he introduced the song “Cocktails for Two.”

Brisson married Cleo Willard Brisson in 1915. He was the father of producer Frederick Brisson and the father-in-law of actress Rosalind Russell. In 1949 he received the Danish Order of the Dannebrog and the Swedish Order of Vasa. He hosted a radio program, A Voice in the Night, on Mutual in 1946. He died in Copenhagen on 25 September 1958 after a hospital stay for jaundice; a requiem mass was held, and he was buried in West Cemetery.