Mel Ferrer

Born

June 16, 1917

Died

2008

From

Elberon, New Jersey, USA·Santa Barbara, California, USA

Height

1.91 m (6'3")

Also:
Director

113

Credits on file

Decades active

In short · Acted for nine decades — 113 credits.

Remembered for

Ranked by community engagement + sustained interest across this person's credits in our database.

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Biography

Mel Ferrer, born Melchor Gaston Ferrer on August 25, 1917, in Elberon, New Jersey, was the son of a Cuban-born surgeon and a Manhattan socialite. He attended prep school and later Princeton University. Beginning at age 15, he worked in summer stock theater. After graduating from Princeton, he became an editor at a small Vermont newspaper and wrote a children's book titled *Tito's Hats*. He made his Broadway debut as a chorus dancer in two musicals in 1938 and appeared as an actor in New York two years later. After recovering from polio, he worked as a disc jockey in Texas and Arkansas before becoming a producer-director for top-rated NBC radio shows in New York. Ferrer made his film directorial debut with the low-budget Columbia Pictures film *The Girl of the Limberlost* (1945), then returned to Broadway to star in Lillian Hellman's *Strange Fruit*. He served as John Ford's assistant on *The Fugitive* (1947). Ferrer's screen acting debut came in *Lost Boundaries* (1949). He is best known for his role as the lame puppeteer in *Lili* (1953) and as Prince Andrei in *War and Peace* (1956). He directed Claudette Colbert in *The Secret Fury* (1950) and Audrey Hepburn—his wife at the time—in *Green Mansions* (1959). Ferrer produced the successful film *Wait Until Dark* (1967), also starring Hepburn. The couple separated the following year and eventually divorced. From 1960 onward, Ferrer primarily produced and acted in Europe.