Luis van Rooten
Born	Luis d'Antin van Rooten November 29, 1906(1906-11-29) Mexico City
Died	June 17, 1973 (aged 66) Chatham, Massachusetts
Alma mater	University of Pennsylvania
Occupation	actor, author, translator

Luis van Rooten, (November 29, 1906, Mexico City, Mexico - June 17, 1973, Chatham, Massachusetts), was an American film actor. He was christened Luis d'Antin van Rooten.

Van Rooten earned his BA at the University of Pennsylvania and worked as an architect before deciding to pursue film work in Hollywood sometime during World War II. His facility with languages made van Rooten an in-demand military radio announcer during the war, and he conducted a variety of broadcasts in Italian, Spanish and French. This led into film work, often in roles requiring an accent or skill with dialects.

Known for his villainous roles, he played Nazi ringleader Heinrich Himmler in both Hitler's Madman (1943) and Operation Eichmann (1961). He played supporting roles with a wide swath of film stars, including Alan Ladd in Two Years Before the Mast (1946) and Beyond Glory (1948), Charles Laughton in The Big Clock (1948), Veronica Lake in Saigon (1948), Edward G. Robinson in The Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948) and Kirk Douglas in Detective Story (1951). He provided the voices for both the King and the Grand Duke in Disney's animated "Cinderella."

Contents 1 Radio and television 2 Mots D'Heures: Gousses, Rames 3 References 4 See also

[edit] Radio and television

Van Rooten found steady work doing narration in addition to acting in live television and radio dramas, such as The Mysterious Traveler. He portrayed the evil Roxor in the late 1940s revival of the radio serial Chandu the Magician. He also performed on Broadway in Eugene O'Neill's A Touch of the Poet (1958) and John Osborne's Luther (1963).

He is best-known for his character work in films, but van Rooten was also a skilled artist and designer and the author of several sophisticated books of humor. These include Van Rooten's Book of Improbable Saints ^[1], The Floriculturist's Vade Mecum of Exotic and Recondite Plants, Shrubs and Grasses, and One Malignant Parasite ^[2]

[edit] Mots D'Heures: Gousses, Rames

He is well-known in particular for his Mots D'Heures: Gousses, Rames (1967), ostensibly a collection of poems by an obscure and unsung Frenchman (with translations and commentary), Van Rooten used French words and phrases which, when spoken aloud with a French accent produce English Mother Goose rhymes. The following example, when spoken aloud, sounds like the opening lines to "Humpty Dumpty"^[3]:

Un petit d'un petit

S'étonne aux Halles

Un petit d'un petit

Ah! Degrés te fallent

A free translation might read:

Child of a child

Astonished by Les Halles

Child of a child

Disgrace befalls you

Van Rooten died June 17, 1973 in Chatham, Massachusetts, where he and his family had a vacation home.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Anguish Languish