Francis Lederer (November 6, 1899 – May 25, 2000) was an Austro-Hungarian Empire-born American film and stage actor with a successful career, first in Europe, then in the United States.

Franz worked in a store that sold dry goods, and his first theatrical experience came when he was tasked with cleaning shelves in the background in a play while the main actors performed.

[2] After service in the Austrian-Hungarian Imperial Army in World War I, he made his stage debut as an apprentice with the New German Theater, a walk-on in the play Burning Heart.

[3] As the rise of the Nazi movement and the institutionalization of anti-Semitism spread throughout Europe and the political situation there deteriorated, Lederer, who was Jewish, chose to remain in America rather than return home.

[6] Although he continued to play leads occasionally – notably as a playboy in Mitchell Leisen's Midnight, with Claudette Colbert and John Barrymore in 1939[3] – in the late 1930s Lederer began to expand his character parts to include villains.

[3] Edward G. Robinson praised Lederer's performance as a German American Bundist in Confessions of a Nazi Spy in 1939,[2] and he earned plaudits for his portrayal of a fascist in The Man I Married (1940) with Joan Bennett.

He appeared in stage productions of Golden Boy (1937); Seventh Heaven (1939); No Time for Comedy (1939), in which he replaced Laurence Olivier;[3] The Play's the Thing (1942); A Doll's House (1944); Arms and the Man (1950); The Sleeping Prince (1956); and The Diary of Anne Frank (1958).

He returned to the silver screen in 1944, appearing in Voice in the Wind and The Bridge of San Luis Rey, and went on to play in films such as Jean Renoir's The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946) and Million Dollar Weekend (1948).

Lederer continued to appear on television over the next 10 years in such shows as Sally, The Untouchables, Ben Casey, Blue Light, Mission: Impossible and That Girl.

[3][8] They wed there in 1941, and over the years he and Marion remained active in supporting various community projects and international humanitarian services, including the promotion of UNICEF.

The estate is next to the very large 1845 Mexican land grant Rancho El Escorpión, which was Lederer's southern rural viewshed and remained undeveloped open space until 1959.