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Walter Davis Pidgeon (September 23, 1897–September 25, 1984) was a Canadian actor.

Born near Saint John, New Brunswick, he began his career by studying at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. He was a classicaly trained baritone. After working as an actor on stage for a few years, he made his Broadway debut in 1925. He made several silent movies in the 1920s, followed by some early talkie musicals. Afterwards Pidgeon played secondary roles to the main male star in such films as Saratoga and The Girl of the Golden West. It was not until he starred in How Green Was My Valley that he became well-known.

He starred opposite Greer Garson in Blossoms in the Dust, in Mrs. Miniver (for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor) and in its sequel, The Miniver Story. He was nominated again in 1944 for Madame Curie. Although he continued making films, including Forbidden Planet, based on Shakespeare's The Tempest, Pidgeon returned to work on Broadway in the mid-1950s after a twenty-year absence, and was featured in Take Me Along with Jackie Gleason. He continued films in 1961, playing Admiral Harriman Nelson in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and in 1962, in Walt Disney's Big Red and Otto Preminger's Advise and Consent. His role as Florenz Ziegfield in Funny Girl (1965) was well received. During his career, he guest-starred in many television programs, including Perry Mason, The FBI, and Marcus Welby, M.D..

He retired fully in 1970, and died in Santa Monica, California, in 1984. In accordance with his wishes, his body was donated to the UCLA Medical School for medical research.

Pidgeon has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6414 Hollywood Blvd.

See also

• Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood

External links

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