35 Portrait Photos of George Brent in the 1930s and 1940s

Brent was born in Ballinasloe, County Galway, Ireland on March 15, 1904, to John J. and Mary (née McGuinness) Nolan. His father was a shopkeeper and his mother was a native of Clonfad, Moore, County Roscommon. In September 1915, he moved with his younger sister Kathleen to New York City. There, they joined their mother, who was living in the USA after her separation from her husband.

Brent returned to Ireland in February 1921, during the Irish War of Independence (1919–1922), and was involved in the Irish Republican Army. During this period he also became involved with the Abbey Theatre.

He fled Ireland with a bounty set on his head by the British government, although he later claimed only to have been a courier for guerrilla leader and tactician Michael Collins. According to Ballinasloe Life (volume 2, issue 4, Oct/Nov 2012), the Irish War of Independence careers of three different men named George Nolan (Brent and two others; one from County Dublin and the other from County Offaly) were apparently conflated, which may explain some of the discrepancies regarding Brent’s year of birth, life, and activities during the 1919 to 1922 period.

Brent travelled from England to Canada and returned to the United States in August 1921.He decided to become a professional actor. He made his Broadway debut in director Guthrie McClintic’s The Dover Road. He did numerous plays throughout the 1920s. He moved to Hollywood and made his first film for 20th Century Fox, Under Suspicion (1930).

At Universal, he was seventh billed for Ex-Bad Boy (1931) and fifth for Homicide Squad (1931), then was in the Rin Tin Tin serial The Lightning Warrior (1931) at Mascot Pictures. He was signed by Warner Bros. in 1931, where he played Barbara Stanwyck’s leading man in So Big! (1932). This established him as a leading man for female stars.

Brent is best remembered for the eleven films he made with Bette Davis, which included Jezebel (1938) and Dark Victory (1939). In 1978, he made one last film, the made-for-television production Born Again.

Brent was married five times: to Helen Louise Campbell (1925–1927), Ruth Chatterton (1932–1934), Constance Worth (1937), Ann Sheridan (1942–1943), and Janet Michaels (1947–1974). Chatterton, Worth, and Sheridan were actresses; Chatterton and Sheridan were Warner Bros. players.

His final marriage to Janet Michaels, a former model and dress designer, lasted 27 years until her death in 1974. They had two children: a daughter, Suzanne (born August 3, 1950), and a son, Barry (born November 26, 1954).

Brent also had affairs with actresses Greta Garbo and Bette Davis, the latter a frequent Warner Bros. co-star.

Brent suffered from emphysema and died of natural causes in 1979 in Solana Beach, California. He was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame with two stars in 1960. He received a motion-pictures star located at 1709 Vine Street and a second star located at 1612 Vine Street for his work in television.

Take a look at these vintage photos to see portraits of a young George Brent in the 1930s and 1940s.