Edmund Purdom

Edmund Purdom — Biography

Edmund Anthony Cutlar Purdom was born on 19 December 1924 in Welwyn Garden City, England, and died in Rome on 1 January 2009. He trained on the British stage, appearing in several Shakespeare productions, before crossing to Broadway and then to Hollywood, and finally building the rest of his working life in Italy. His best-known credit remains the title role in The Egyptian, released the same year, 1954, as his other signature picture, The Student Prince. Because he inherited major parts that Mario Lanza and Marlon Brando had walked away from, the press dubbed him "the Replacement Star" by the mid-1950s. Once his Hollywood run stalled, Purdom went home to Britain only briefly before making Italy his permanent base, spending the remainder of his career in local productions. From the 1970s into the 1990s, he became a recurring presence in European genre film, working alongside directors such as Sergio Martino and Ruggero Deodato, among others.