fiction.wikisort.org - Actor

Marmaduke Arundel "Duke" Wetherell (1883[1] – 25 February 1939) was a British–South African actor, screenwriter, producer, film director and big-game hunter.[2]

In the 1930s, Marmaduke went to Loch Ness to look for the Loch Ness monster. Wetherell claimed to have found footprints, but when casts of the footprints were sent to scientists for analysis they turned out to be from a hippopotamus; a prankster had used a hippopotamus-foot umbrella stand.

Biography

Born in Bodmin, Cornwall, Wetherell acted in both British and South African films during the silent era. In the 1920s he branched out to producing and directing films but they were not a success.[3] He produced, directed and played the lead role in his productions of Livingstone (1925) and Robinson Crusoe (1927). A planned biography of Lawrence of Arabia called Revolt in the Desert to be photographed by Freddie Young who had photographed his war films The Somme (1927) and Victory (1928) did not eventuate.[4][5]

He was responsible for the hoax "surgeon's photograph" of the Loch Ness Monster.

He was the father of actor Ian Colin.

Selected filmography

Actor

Director

Producer

• Roses of Picardy (1927)

Bibliography

• Low, Rachael. History of the British Film, 1918–1929. George Allen & Unwin, 1971.

References

External links

• M. A. Wetherell at IMDb
• Marmaduke Wetherell on Encyclopaedia of South African Theatre, Film, Media and Performance (ESAT) https://esat.sun.ac.za/index.php/M.A._Wetherell

---