
Edward Erskholme Clive was a Welsh stage actor and director who had a prolific acting career in Britain and America. He also played numerous supporting roles in Hollywood movies between 1933 and his death. E. E. Clive was born on 28 August 1879 in Blaenavon in Monmouthshire. Clive studied for a medical career, and had completed four years of medical studies at St Bartholomew's Hospital before switching his focus to acting at age 22. Touring the provinces for a decade, Clive became an expert at virtually every sort of regional dialect in the British Isles. He moved to the US in 1912, where after working in the Orpheum vaudeville circuit he set up his own stock company in Boston. By the 1920s, his company was operating in Hollywood; among his repertory players were such up-and-comers as Rosalind Russell. He also worked at the Broadway in several plays. E. E. Clive made his film debut as a village police constable in 1933's The Invisible Man with Claude Rains, then spent the next seven years showing up in wry supporting and bit parts, where he often portrayed comical versions of English stereotypes. He often played butlers, reporters, aristocrats, shopkeepers and cabbies during his short film career. Though his roles were often small, Clive was a well-known and prolific character actor of his time. Among his best-known roles was the incompetent Burgomaster in James Whale's horror classic Bride of Frankenstein (1935). He was a semi-regular as Tenny the Butler in Paramount Pictures' Bulldog Drummond B series, starring John Howard; he also played butlers in other movies like Bachelor Mother with David Niven and Ginger Rogers. In 1939, Clive appeared in The Little Princess as the lawyer Mr. Barrows, and the first two entries of the classic Sherlock Holmes series starring Basil Rathbone. One of Clive's last roles was Sir William Lucas in the 1940 literature adaption Pride and Prejudice (1940) with Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson. E. E. Clive died on 6 June 1940, of a heart ailment, in his Hollywood home. He was survived by his wife Eleanor and their child. Clive was a member of the Euclid lodge of Freemasons in Boston.

Burgomaster
1935
Constable Jaffers
1933
Saint Gaudens (uncredited)
1936
Mr. Naismith (uncredited)
1940
Masters
1936
Butler
1939
Sergeant Wilkes
1936
Sir William Lucas
1940
Judge in 'Old Bailey'
1935
London Gossip Editor Bill Mechan
1936
Clerk of the Court
1935
Horace Snell
1940
Inspector Bristol
1939
London Cabbie John Clayton
1939
Fishing Instructor
1936
Sheriff's Man (uncredited)
1935
"Tenny" Tennison
1937
Chief Customs Inspector (uncredited)
1934
Cosgrove Dabney
1937
Magistrate
1936
Mr. Barrows
1939
Dr. Smith (uncredited)
1936
Minister MacDougall
1938
Thorpe's Chauffeur Westbrook (uncredited)
1935
Sergeant Dawes
1934

Sir Arthur
1936
Mr. Palmiston
1937
Det. Sgt. Thacker
1934
Cosgrove Dabney in 'Personal Property' (arch. foot.) (uncred.)
1964
Sir Humphrey Harcourt
1936
Auctioneer
1937
Barraclough
1939
Sapsea
1935
First Butler
1937

London Bobbie
1934
Sir Harry Lorridaile
1936
Room Steward
1938
Walker
1936