Theatre and film debut Robinson made his professional stage debut playing a character named Sato in a production of
Paid in Full, which opened in April 1913 in
Binghamton, New York. He then joined a Cincinnati stock company called The Orpheum Players for 22 weeks and played various roles in many plays, including two different characters in
Alias Jimmy Valentine. "I was becoming adept at doubling—that is, playing two parts in one play, in suitable disguises. I did it all season," he later wrote. Robinson's next stage appearance was as the guide Nasir in a touring production of
Kismet that took him to Ottawa and Montreal before closing in November 1914. In 1915, Robinson made his
Broadway debut at the
Hudson Theatre in
Archibald and
Edgar Selwyn's production of the play
Under Fire, written by
Roi Cooper Megrue. He played four roles in
Under Fire: "They were all bit parts, but I portrayed a French spy, a Belgian peasant, a Prussian soldier and a Cockney private. I became known as the league of nations."
Under Fire ran for six months and the Selwyns hired Robinson for the role of a prisoner in their production of another play written by Megrue,
Under Sentence. After
Under Sentence, he played a wide range of characters, including a Filipino in Azelle M. Aldrich and Joseph Noll's
The Pawn (1917), a German soldier in
Drafted (1917), a Swede in Henning Berger's
The Deluge (1917), and a French-Canadian in
Harry James Smith's
The Little Teacher (1918).
The Little Teacher was a success, but he left the production to enlist as a sailor in the
United States Navy. He went to
Pelham Bay Naval Training Station and also applied to enter naval intelligence. During this time, Robinson thought films were "scarcely an art form" and believed "the living theater was the only theater and all the rest was nonsense." When World War I ended, Robinson went back to the stage and toured with the Garrick Players of Washington, D.C. He returned to Broadway in 1919 with a role in
First is Last, "the first and only time" he played an Anglo-Saxon on stage. In 1920, he was cast in productions of
Maxim Gorky's
Night Lodging and
Booth Tarkington's
Poldekin. In November,
Arthur Hopkins gave him a role in a play titled
Samson and Delilah, starring
Jacob Ben-Ami. He disliked his performance in the silent film
Fields of Glory and producer
Sam Goldwyn cut it out. In the summer of 1921, he performed in five plays at the
Elitch Theatre in Denver, Colorado. He liked his role as Mendel in
The Idle Inn (1921) and also played in the 1922 revival of
The Deluge. Following a return to Denver's Elitch Theatre, Robinson accepted a role in
Alfred Savoir's
Banco, with
Alfred Lunt in the title role. Film director
John S. Robertson offered Robinson the supporting role of Domingo Escobar in the silent film
The Bright Shawl (1923), which was based on a
Joseph Hergesheimer novel of the same title. Robinson traveled to
Havana, Cuba, for the filming and was paid the equivalent of a stage actor's 20-week salary. He later remembered, "In any case,
The Bright Shawl was not nearly as heartrending an experience as
Fields of Glory. Still, the manufacture of a movie seemed silly and unrewarding to me." In 1923, he appeared in four Broadway productions:
Henrik Ibsen's
Peer Gynt, starring his friend
Joseph Schildkraut;
Elmer Rice's avant-garde
The Adding Machine;
Ferenc Molnár's
Launzi, with
Pauline Lord in the title role; and
A Royal Fandango, starring
Ethel Barrymore.
Broadway success and first sound films In 1924, Robinson played the role of Ed Munn in a stage adaptation of the
Olive Higgins Prouty novel
Stella Dallas, starring the eminent actress
Mrs. Leslie Carter in the title role. That same year, he had a role in the successful Broadway production of
Edwin Justus Mayer's
The Firebrand, a play about
Benvenuto Cellini and the
Medicis; Robinson played the part of Ottaviano, the cousin of
Frank Morgan's character,
Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Florence. From November 1925 to January 1926, Robinson played two
George Bernard Shaw characters:
Caesar in the
Theatre Guild revival of
Androcles and the Lion and Giuseppe in its
curtain raiser,
The Man of Destiny. He played a Jew in the Guild's production of
Franz Werfel's
The Goat Song (1926). The Guild cast him as a stage director in
Nikolai Evreinov's
The Chief Thing (1926), a play he described as "highly theatrical and stirring." In August, Robinson appeared with actress Gladys Lloyd (his future wife) in the play
Henry Behave. In October, he portrayed Mexican general
Porfirio Díaz in the Guild production of
Juarez and Maximilian, a Werfel play about the
Second Mexican Empire. In November, he played a New England lawyer in
Sidney Howard's ''Ned McCobb's Daughter''. , Robinson,
Claudette Colbert, and
David Newell in
The Hole in the Wall (1929), Robinson's first sound film. From January to February 1927, Robinson enacted the role of Smerdiakov in the Guild's adaptation of
Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel
The Brothers Karamazov. His next and final role for the Guild was Ponza in
Luigi Pirandello's
Right You Are If You Think You Are (1927). In the summer, Robinson went to Atlantic City to play a cigar store owner in a production of
Jo Swerling's
The Kibitzer, the first play billed "
with Edward G. Robinson." When
The Kibitzer closed, he returned to Broadway and took the role of a gangster in
Bartlett Cormack's
The Racket, which ran for 119 performances between November 1927 and March 1928. Although he disliked the character, he later remembered, "Boy, did that play change my life. It was a smash!"
The Racket was also staged at the
Curran in San Francisco and the Biltmore in Los Angeles, where film studio executives saw Robinson and offered him contracts, which he turned down. In late 1928, he wore a red wig for his next Broadway role, a "maniacal masochist" in a stage adaptation of
Hugh Walpole's
A Man with Red Hair. Robinson accepted a $50,000 offer from film producer
Walter Wanger to play a role opposite
Claudette Colbert in the 1929
sound film The Hole in the Wall, filmed at Paramount's
Kaufman Astoria Studios. It was his first sound film and he found he had to "develop a whole new bag of tricks", which included speaking in a lower voice, acting without exaggerated expressions, and filming a story out of continuity. Robinson later said: Robinson helped Swerling rewrite
The Kibitzer and Swerling shared the playwriting credit with him. A success, the rewritten play ran on Broadway for 120 performances from February to June 1929. Robinson later remarked, "It was also a vehicle for me. Why not? I was the coauthor, and I gave myself all the best of it. […] Every once in a while an actor finds a play that serves him well." Swerling and the play's producer, Patterson McNutt, sold the film rights to Paramount Pictures without Robinson's consent. He sued them but lost. He had a featured role in the
Universal film
Night Ride (1930).
A. H. Woods offered Robinson star billing in a play with "junky" dialogue, which he rejected.
MGM producer
Irving Thalberg sent him the "beautifully written" script for the film
A Lady to Love (1930). He went to California and played a 50-year-old Italian opposite top-billed
Vilma Bánky as his wife. The film, directed by
Victor Sjöström, was a success with audiences, but Robinson declined a three-year contract with MGM. At Universal, Robinson got second billing in
Outside the Law and also replaced
Jean Hersholt as Charlie Yong in
East Is West (both 1930). He followed these films with eight performances as the title character in
Edmond Fleg's play
Mr. Samuel (originally titled
Le marchand de Paris) in November 1930.
Hal Wallis saw Robinson in
Mr. Samuel and went backstage to inform him that
Warners-
First National Pictures wanted to make a deal with him. After signing a contract with the studio, Robinson played the male lead in his first film for Warners,
The Widow from Chicago (1931) with
Alice White.
Little Caesar and stardom at Warners '' (1931), with
Douglas Fairbanks Jr. At this point, Robinson was becoming an established film actor. What began his rise to stardom was an acclaimed portrayal of the gangster Caesar Enrico "Rico" Bandello in
Little Caesar (1931) at
Warner Bros.
The New York Times praised his "wonderfully effective performance" and also wrote, "Little Caesar becomes at Mr. Robinson's hands a figure out of Greek epic tragedy".
Hal Wallis had originally offered him the
bit part of Otero, but Robinson thought he was not right for that role and did not want to play bit parts. He told Wallis, "If you're going to have me in
Little Caesar as Otero, you will completely imbalance the picture. The only part I will consider playing is Little Caesar." Warners immediately cast him in another gangster film,
Smart Money (1931), his only movie with
James Cagney. In
Smart Money, he played a barber whose weaknesses are gambling and blondes; he later said, "For the record, I am the most penny ante of gamblers and I prefer brunettes." He was reunited with
Mervyn LeRoy, director of
Little Caesar, in
Five Star Final (1931), where he played a journalist named Randall.
Five Star Final was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Picture and became one of Robinson's favorites: "I loved Randall because he wasn't a gangster. […] He made sense, and thus I'm able to say that
Five Star Final is one of my favorite films." Robinson's next two films were not among his favorites. He described
The Hatchet Man (1932) as "one of my horrible memories" and
Two Seconds (1932) as "a mishmash memory". He "adored"
Tiger Shark (1932), a melodrama directed by
Howard Hawks, because Hawks "let [him] chew the scenery" as a tuna fisherman. Warners then starred him in a "highly fictionalized" biopic he "rather liked",
Silver Dollar (1932), where Robinson portrayed prospector
Horace Tabor.
Mary Astor was his love interest in
The Little Giant (1933), a comedy about a beer baron who tries to enter high society. Astor was one of Robinson's favorite leading ladies: "She had then all the attributes that make for greatness in an actress: beauty, poise, experience, talent, and, above all, she did her homework. She has been vastly underrated, and it's a great pity." He disliked the script for his next film,
I Loved a Woman (1933), and managed to have it rewritten. Robinson thought
Kay Francis, his co-star, "had that indefinable presence that somehow enabled her to be convincing as well as beautiful." He "loathed"
Dark Hazard (1934) but enjoyed making
The Man with Two Faces (1934) because he was reunited with Astor and had the opportunity to "use a putty nose, a set of whiskers, false eyebrows, and a French accent." in
Barbary Coast (1935). Warners loaned Robinson to Columbia for the
John Ford-directed comedy ''
The Whole Town's Talking (1935), which was based on a novel written by W. R. Burnett, the author of Little Caesar
. He played two characters in the film: a notorious murderer and a clerk who resembles him. Robinson called Ford "the consummate professional" and "a totally remarkable director". He also said it "was a delight to work with and to know" Jean Arthur, his leading lady in The Whole Town's Talking
. Sam Goldwyn borrowed him for the historical Western film Barbary Coast (1935), directed by Hawks and co-starring Miriam Hopkins. Robinson later wrote that working with Hopkins was "a horror": "I tried'' to work with her. She made no effort whatever to work with me." Although she was always late and uncooperative, Hopkins agreed to act without her shoes whenever she had a scene with Robinson, who disliked the idea of standing on a box to look taller. Tired of Hopkins' unprofessionalism, Robinson eventually confronted her and told her off in front of the cast and crew. After that, Robinson and Hopkins had to play a slap scene and she told him, "Eddie, let's do this right. You smack me now so we won't have to do it over and over again. Do you hear me, Eddie? Smack me hard." The slap was so loud everyone heard it and applauded. Back at Warner Bros., Robinson agreed to play a detective in
Bullets or Ballots (1936) only after small changes were made to the screenplay. Warners then sent him to Britain for the role of a salesman in the comedy
Thunder in the City (1937). The British producers allowed Robinson to change the script and he asked
Robert E. Sherwood to rewrite it. Sherwood turned it into a satire, but the film was not successful. Robinson starred as the title character's promoter in the boxing drama
Kid Galahad (1937), with
Bette Davis as his leading lady and
Humphrey Bogart in a supporting role. Davis' acting style did not impress him when they made the film: "Miss Davis was, when I played with her, not a very gifted amateur and employed any number of jarring mannerisms that she used to form an image. In her early period Miss Davis played the image, and not herself, and certainly not the character provided by the author." Robinson turned down several scripts at Warners before MGM borrowed him for the title role in
The Last Gangster (1937), featuring
James Stewart and "the compelling"
Rose Stradner. He returned to Warners and approved of his next two assignments: the "very funny" comedy
A Slight Case of Murder (1938), for which he received good notices from critics, and
The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938), in which he played the title role, which had been originated on stage by Sir
Cedric Hardwicke. Robinson accepted an offer from Columbia to star in
I Am the Law (1938) as a professor who becomes a prosecutor. He later described the film as "a potboiler, but at least I was on the right side of the law for once and survived; up to now, it seemed to me, I had died in every picture."
World War II in
Brother Orchid (1940). At the time
World War II broke out in Europe, Robinson played an
FBI agent in
Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), the first American film that portrayed
Nazism as a threat to the United States. MGM borrowed him for the lead role in the financially successful drama
Blackmail (1939). Then, to avoid being typecast, Robinson portrayed the biomedical scientist and Nobel laureate
Paul Ehrlich in the biopic ''
Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet'' (1940). He later said, "Among all the plays and films in which I've appeared, I'm proudest of my role in ''Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet''. […] It was, I think, one of the most distinguished performances I've ever given." Robinson also portrayed entrepreneur
Paul Julius Reuter in
A Dispatch from Reuters (1940), his second-favorite film. Both films were biographies of prominent Jewish public figures. In between, Robinson played a gangster who goes to a monastery in the comedy
Brother Orchid (1940), featuring Humphrey Bogart and
Ann Sothern. According to Robinson, he and Bogart "got along splendidly" and "respected each other." Robinson portrayed the villainous
Wolf Larsen in
the 1941 film adaptation of the
Jack London novel
The Sea Wolf, co-starring
John Garfield and
Ida Lupino. He thought Garfield "was one of the best young actors I ever encountered". Robinson followed
The Sea Wolf with a top-billed role opposite
Marlene Dietrich and
George Raft in
Manpower (1941). In his autobiography, he remembered Dietrich's professionalism: "Playing with her, I learned that we shared a common passion: work. More than that: Be on time, know the lines, toe the marks, say the words, be ready for anything." Although he described
Manpower as mostly "inane", Robinson considered that he and Dietrich were a "stunning combination" and that adding Raft as the third lead was "showmanship casting." He found Raft to be "touchy, difficult, thoroughly impossible to play with"; Robinson wanted to leave the film when Raft punched him, but Hal Wallis convinced him to stay. He went to MGM for
Unholy Partners (1942), a film he thought was "best forgotten", and returned to Warners for the comedy
Larceny, Inc. (1942). He volunteered for military service in June 1942 but was disqualified as he was aged 48; he was an active and vocal critic of
fascism and Nazism during the war. He also starred in the
Climax! episode "Epitaph for a Spy", a television version of
Eric Ambler's
novel of the same title. He accepted third billing and played
Barbara Stanwyck's husband in
The Violent Men (1955), co-starring
Glenn Ford. He had a role as an attorney in the well-received
Tight Spot (1955), but top billing went to
Ginger Rogers. Although Robinson received top billing in
A Bullet for Joey (1955),
George Raft played the leading role in that film. He starred in
Illegal (1955), featuring
Nina Foch and
Hugh Marlowe, and co-starred with top-billed
Alan Ladd in
Hell on Frisco Bay (1956). He played the top-billed role in the psychological thriller
Nightmare (1956) but later described these films as "the series of program movies that I did for the money and something to do, my own self-esteem decreasing by the hour." 's
The Ten Commandments (1956). Robinson career's rehabilitation received a boost when the
anti-communist film director
Cecil B. DeMille cast him as
Dathan, the Hebrew overseer who becomes the governor of
Goshen, in his
1956 version of The Ten Commandments, the most expensive film up to that time. DeMille signed Robinson for the role in September 1954. He received fourth star billing after
Charlton Heston,
Yul Brynner, and
Anne Baxter. In his autobiography, Robinson remembered: , Robinson, and
Charlton Heston, in
The Ten Commandments. Heston said Robinson was "extraordinary" in the "difficult" role of Dathan, a composite of all the Israelites who rebel against
Moses in the
Book of Exodus.
Jesse L. Lasky Jr., one of the screenwriters of
The Ten Commandments, also praised Robinson's acting: "At the end of a long film, to sway this multitude by one speech, to turn them, from an inspired host marching to freedom with God and Prophet into carousing, faithless sinners, required a magic performance. […] Eddie accomplished the impossible with the reading of that speech." Robinson later told Lasky, "You gave me the greatest exit a 'heavy' ever had. No actor would break friendship with a writer who created a tempest, then an earthquake, then opened a fissure and had me fall through into hell. Even in
Little Caesar I never had an exit as good as that!"
Later career Before
The Ten Commandments was released, Robinson returned to the Broadway stage for the first time in 26 years. He starred as the middle-aged manufacturer who falls in love with a younger woman, played by
Gena Rowlands, in
Paddy Chayefsky's romantic play
Middle of the Night. Produced and directed by
Joshua Logan, the Broadway production ran for 477 performances between February 1956 and May 1957. Robinson's role in
Middle of the Night earned him a 1956
Tony Award nomination for
Best Actor in a Play. Robinson had a second-billed part as
Frank Sinatra's brother in
Frank Capra's comedy film
A Hole in the Head (1959). In 1959, he appeared as the chairman of the board of a textile firm in
Goodyear Theatre episode "A Good Name", and worked with his son
Edward G. Robinson Jr. in "Heritage", an episode of ''
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre''. Robinson went to Europe for
Seven Thieves (1960). He had support roles in
My Geisha (1962),
Two Weeks in Another Town (1962),
Sammy Going South (1963),
The Prize (1963),
Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), and
Good Neighbor Sam (1964). When
Spencer Tracy fell ill, Robinson took over the role of
Carl Shurz in John Ford's
Cheyenne Autumn (1964). He played a supporting role in
The Outrage (1964), an American remake of
Rashomon. He was second-billed, under
Steve McQueen, with his name above the title, in
The Cincinnati Kid (1965). McQueen had idolized Robinson while growing up, and opted for him when Spencer Tracy insisted on top billing for the same role. Robinson played the role of Lancey Howard, "the reigning champ of the stud poker tables": "That man on the screen, more than in any other picture I ever made, was Edward G. Robinson with great patches of Emanuel Goldenberg showing through. He was all cold and discerning and unflappable on the exterior; he was aging and full of self-doubt on the inside." Robinson was top-billed in
The Blonde from Peking. He also appeared in
Grand Slam (1967), starring
Janet Leigh and
Klaus Kinski. Robinson was originally cast in the role of Dr. Zaius in
Planet of the Apes (1968) and he even went so far as to film a screen test with
Charlton Heston. However, Robinson dropped out of the project before its production began due to heart problems and concerns over the long hours that he would have needed to spend under the heavy ape makeup. He was replaced by
Maurice Evans. , Robinson,
Robert Wagner, and
Raquel Welch in
The Biggest Bundle of Them All (1968). His later appearances included
The Biggest Bundle of Them All (1968) starring
Robert Wagner and
Raquel Welch,
Never a Dull Moment (1968) with
Dick Van Dyke, ''
It's Your Move (1968), Mackenna's Gold (1969) starring Gregory Peck and Omar Sharif, and the Night Gallery'' episode "The Messiah on Mott Street" (1971). Heston, as president of the
Screen Actors Guild, presented Robinson with its annual award in 1969, "in recognition of his pioneering work in organizing the union, his service during World War II, and his 'outstanding achievement in fostering the finest ideals of the acting profession.'" In his autobiography he wrote, "For me to say I wouldn't accept it would certainly be a case of refusing something never offered; for me to say I would, would be to ask for something I've never been tendered." In 1973, the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted Robinson an
honorary Oscar in recognition that he had "achieved greatness as a player, a patron of the arts and a dedicated citizen ... in sum, a Renaissance man". Hollywood columnist
Dorothy Manners observed, "And the long-delayed tribute to Edward G. Robinson (amazingly enough, this very fine actor had never even received a nomination from the Academy during his lifetime) was a beautiful moment."
Radio From 1937 to 1942, Robinson starred as Steve Wilson, editor of the
Illustrated Press, in the newspaper drama
Big Town. He also portrayed hardboiled detective
Sam Spade for a
Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of
The Maltese Falcon. During the 1940s he performed on CBS Radio's "
Cadena de las Américas" network broadcasts to South America in collaboration with
Nelson Rockefeller's
cultural diplomacy program at the U.S. State Department's
Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs. ==Political activism==