Melvyn Douglas (born Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg, April 5, 1901 – August 4, 1981) was an American actor. Douglas came to prominence in 1929 as a suave leading man, perhaps best typified by his performance in the romantic comedy
Ninotchka (1939) with Greta Garbo. Douglas later played mature and fatherly characters, as in his Academy Award-winning performances in
Hud (1963) and
Being There (1979) and his Academy Award–nominated performance in
I Never Sang for My Father (1970). Douglas was one of 24 performers to win the Triple Crown of Acting. In the last few years of his life Douglas appeared in films with supernatural stories involving ghosts, including
The Changeling in 1980 and
Ghost Story in 1981, his last completed film role.
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