Sidney Blackmer was a Tony-award winning actor who played Teddy Roosevelt in seven movies. He is best remembered for his role as Roman Castevet in Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby (1968). Born in Salisbury, North Carolina, Blackmer initially planned to study law at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, but instead pursued a career in acting. He made his Broadway debut in 1917 and appeared in 15 other productions on the Great White Way from 1920 to 1928. Blackmer was a pioneer in the new medium of radio, singing during the 1920s, and later participated in the first experimental dramas on Allen B. DuMont's television network.
Blackmer began his film career in the silent era, appearing in uncredited roles in movies produced by various film studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey. He made his credited film debut in 1929 and went on to star in early sound films, including Kismet (1930/I) and Little Caesar (1931). He also appeared in a supporting role in the Robert Donat version of The Count of Monte Cristo (1934) and in William A. Wellman's The President Vanishes (1934),co-starring Edward Arnold and Osgood Perkins.
In the 1930s, Blackmer appeared in a number of films, including Heidi (1937) and In Old Chicago (1937). He also supported two Caucasian actors in Oriental drag in Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo (1937) and Thank You, Mr. Moto (1937). In the late 1930s, Blackmer began portraying F.D.R.'s cousin Theodore Roosevelt, appearing as the wild and woolly bully Bull Moose himself in This Is My Affair (1937),The Monroe Doctrine (1939),and the Academy Award-winning two-reel short Teddy the Rough Rider (1940).
Blackmer continued to appear in films throughout the 1940s and 1950s, including In Old Oklahoma (1943),Buffalo Bill (1944),and My Girl Tisa (1948). He also appeared in three Broadway productions in the mid-1940s, but it wasn't until the dawn of the new decade of the '50s that he scored his greatest success on Broadway, playing the dipsomaniac Doc in William Inge's Come Back, Little Sheba opposite Shirley Booth. Although Blackmer won the Best Actor (Dramatic) Tony Award for "Sheba," he was not able to repeat his triumph on film and possibly join Booth into the Oscar-winner's circle.
Blackmer was married to Lenore Ulric from 1928 until 1939, when they were divorced. He married his second wife Suzanne Kaaren in 1943, and they had two sons, Jonathan and Brewster Blackmer. Sidney Blackmer died of cancer on October 6, 1973, at the age of 78, in New York City. He was interred in Chestnut Hill Cemetery in his hometown of Salisbury, NC.
