Charles Henry Pywell Daniell (5 March 1894 – 31 October 1963)[1] was an English actor who had a long career in the United States on stage and in cinema.

Daniell was given few opportunities to play sympathetic or 'good guy' roles; an exception was his portrayal of Franz Liszt in the biographical film of Robert and Clara Schumann, Song of Love (1947).

He returned to London for another packed programme of stage performances, which he continued in Britain and the United States while also beginning his film career in 1929 with The Awful Truth, with leading lady Ina Claire.

[7][8] Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cast him in The Unguarded Hour (1936), Camille (1936) with Greta Garbo (as the Baron de Varville), Under Cover of Night (1936), The Thirteenth Chair (1937), The Firefly (1937), and Madame X (1937).

Columbia borrowed him for a role in Holiday (1938), returning to MGM for Marie Antoinette (1938), playing Nicholas de la Motte.

[9] At Warner Bros., Daniell appeared in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) as Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, with Bette Davis and Errol Flynn in the leads directed by Michael Curtiz.

Curtiz accomplished the climactic duel through the use of shadows and over-shoulder shots, with a double fencing Flynn with ingenious inter-cutting of their faces.

Charlie Chaplin borrowed him for a part in The Great Dictator (1940) (playing Garbitsch, to sound like "garbage", a parody of Joseph Goebbels), then he returned to MGM for The Philadelphia Story (1940), and A Woman's Face (1940).

He continued to be in demand for features such as The Sun Also Rises (1957), Les Girls (1957), The Story of Mankind (1957) (AS Pierre Cauchon), From the Earth to the Moon (1958), and the cult horror classic, The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1959).

Daniell appeared in some big screen epics such as The Egyptian (1954) (directed by Curtiz), The Prodigal (1955) and Diane (1956), but was increasingly in television: Lux Video Theatre, Jane Wyman Presents The Fireside Theatre, TV Reader's Digest, Producers' Showcase (an adaptation of The Barretts of Wimpole Street), and Telephone Time.

Daniell claimed one of his favourite roles was as Tony Curtis's supervisor in the Blake Edwards film Mister Cory (1957) at a time when his career was clearly slowing down, but he spoke some of the best and most memorable lines in the movie, "A gentleman never grabs.

He could also be seen in the films Madison Avenue (1961), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961), The Comancheros (1961), The Notorious Landlady (1962), Five Weeks in a Balloon (1962), The Chapman Report (1962) and Mutiny on the Bounty (1962).

His last role was a small uncredited appearance as the British Ambassador in the 1964 film My Fair Lady directed by his old friend George Cukor.

[13] Daniell married Ann Knox and, in the years following World War II, lived in Los Angeles, California.