[20th Century Photographer] — Robert Donat

London: London Films, [Ca. 1930s]. Original B&W sepia-toned photograph issued as a postcard. 5.5 x 3.5 inches. Very Good. Made in Great Britain. Signed in the plate. Friedrich Robert Donat (18 March 1905 - 9 June 1958) was an English film and stage actor. He is best remembered for his roles in Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (1935) and Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), winning for the latter the Academy Award for Best Actor. London Films Productions is a British film and television production company founded in 1932 by Alexander Korda and from 1936 based at Denham Film Studios in Buckinghamshire, near London. The company's productions included The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), Things to Come (1936), Rembrandt (1936), and The Four Feathers (1939). The facility at Denham was taken over in 1939 by Rank and merged with Pinewood to form D & P Studios. The outbreak of war necessitated that The Thief of Bagdad (1940) be completed in California, although Korda's handful of American-made films still displayed Big Ben as their opening corporate logo. More than 40 years after Korda died in January 1956, the company returned to active film-making in 1997 with Morgan Mason as the chief executive. .