Erik Rhodes

Acting

Erik Rhodes

Born 1906-02-10 · El Reno, Oklahoma Territory, USA

Erik Rhodes (born Ernest Sharpe; February 10, 1906 - February 17, 1990) was an American stage, film, and television actor best remembered for his comedic performances as delightful hyperactive Italian gentlemen in the classic Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Hollywood musicals The Gay Divorcee (1934) and Top Hat (1935). With a good baritone voice, he was successful, both prior to and subsequent his film career, in Broadway musicals.

Acting credits

Top Hat poster
7.3

Showman Jerry Travers is working for producer Horace Hardwick in London. Jerry demonstrates his new dance steps late one night in Horace's hotel room, much to the annoyance of sleeping Dale Tremont below. She goes upstairs to complain and the two are immediately attracted to each other. Complications arise when Dale mistakes Jerry for Horace.

Top Hat

1935

The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender poster
5.3

A film scrapbook, images, phrases from our past, hiding their meanings behind veils. Let's lift those veils, one by one, to find how images, at one time seeming innocent, have revealed, after decades, to have homosexual overtones.

The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender

1997

The Gay Divorcee poster
6.9

Seeking a divorce from her absentee husband, Mimi Glossop travels to an English seaside resort. There she falls in love with dancer Guy Holden, whom she later mistakes for the corespondent her lawyer hired.

The Gay Divorcee

1934

On Your Toes poster
4.5

A Russian dance company agrees to stage the new ballet written by a vaudeville hoofer.

On Your Toes

1939

Criminal Lawyer poster
6.5

Barry Brandon, a criminal lawyer, visits the night club of Denny Larkin, his primary client, with Betty Walker, a spoiled society girl. The police raid the club and Brandon pleads that the whole group is guilty, just to get even with Larkin for a rebuke. On the same night in court, Madge Carter is on trial for disorderly conduct, and Brandon volunteers to defend her, and proves the case against her if a frame-up. Finding that she is penniless, Brandon hires her as his secretary, and falls in love with her. Brandon is appointed district attorney and has ambitions of becoming the state governor. Having dinner at Betty's home, she maneuvers him, while he is drunk, into marrying her. Later, Madge is a witness when Larkin shoots down a fellow gangster. By threatening Brandon's life, he forces her to commit perjury at his trial, and say he fired in self-defense. Brandon, the prosecuting attorney (who has had his marriage to Betty annulled) knows she is lying but doesn't know why.

Criminal Lawyer

1937

Mysterious Mr. Moto poster
6.2

The Japanese detective rounds up a league of assassins for Scotland Yard.

Mysterious Mr. Moto

1938

One Rainy Afternoon poster
5.0

Suave French actor Philippe Martin provokes a scandal when, in a darkened theater, he mistakes young Monique for his mistress, Yvonne, and tries to kiss her. Charged with assault, the quick-thinking Philippe claims it's French tradition to do as he did, and is let go. To his surprise, Philippe learns that Monique has paid his fine. As the tabloids exploit the situation, Monique dates Philippe, until a photo appears of him kissing Yvonne.

One Rainy Afternoon

1936

Music for Madame poster
6.3

An Italian immigrant singer, Nino, hoping to succeed in Hollywood, falls in with a gang of crooks who use his talent to distract everyone at a party while they steal the jewels.

Music for Madame

1937

Charlie Chan in Paris poster
6.6

Charlie's visit to Paris, ostensibly a vacation, is really a mission to investigate a bond-forgery racket. But his agent, apache dancer Nardi is killed before she can tell him much. The case, complicated by a false murder accusation for banker's daughter Yvette, climaxes with a strange journey through the Paris sewers.

Charlie Chan in Paris

1935

Fight for Your Lady poster
5.6

Wrestling trainer puts himself in charge of a singer's love life when the singer is jilted by a rich girl.

Fight for Your Lady

1937

Old Man Rhythm poster
7.0

Romantic rivalries between father and son enrolled at the same college.

Old Man Rhythm

1935

Beg, Borrow or Steal poster
6.0

We find con-man Ingraham Steward living by his wits by steering wealthy Paris visitors to sellers of fake paintings and other assorted dodges. He and his wife, Agatha, have been separated for 15 years, but he promises to give their daughter, Joyce, a lavish wedding at his "château" in France. The fact that he doesn't have a château in France is just a minor trifle. He induces the caretaker, Bill Cherau, of a large country estate to allow it to be used for the wedding. The wedding party arrives and Bill falls madly in love with Joyce and she with him, but a gal has gotta do what a gal has gotta do, and her intended marriage to stuffed-shirt Horace Miller stays on the books. But Steward has a change of heart and he tells one and all that he and his friends, Von Gersdorff, Lefevre, Iznamof, Clifton Summitt and Sasch, are all frauds and crooks. Horace and his family stalk out, which is just fine with Joyce as her true love, the caretaker, is waiting on the grounds.

Beg, Borrow or Steal

1937

Two in the Dark poster
6.1

When Mr. X (Walter Able) wakes up in the city park with amnesia, bloody and apparently connected to a murder of a well-known producer. Fast talking Marie Smith (Margot Grahame) takes pity on him, they solve the case and discover his identity.

Two in the Dark

1936

A Night at the Ritz poster
6.5

A PR man talks a swanky hotel into hiring his girlfriend's brother as chef.

A Night at the Ritz

1935

Meet the Girls poster
5.0

Entertainers lose their jobs and their fares from Honolulu back to San Francisco so they must become stowaways.

Meet the Girls

1938

No artwork available
9.0

A telephonist falls for her employer.

Give Her a Ring

1934

Another Face poster
4.8

The surgeon who did the job was dead. Only the nurse knew what this gangster looked like in his new face. He learned about women from her!

Another Face

1935

Woman Chases Man poster
5.9

A pretty architect devises a wild scheme to convince a handsome millionaire to fund a new housing development project.

Woman Chases Man

1937

Say It in French poster
7.5

An American golf pro falls in love with a woman while visiting France; before long they are married and in the US. Upon their arrival, they are dismayed to discover that the golfer's parents have arranged for him to marry a wealthy socialite so they can use her money to support their business....

Say It in French

1938

Dramatic School poster
6.5

Aspiring actress Louise Muban attends the prestigious Paris School of Drama during the day and works at a dreary factory assembling gas meters at night. She daydreams and "acts" her way through life, and her fellow students at school begin to suspect her stories are just that - fabrications. After Louise begins to weave an actual meeting with a debonair playboy into a fantasy of club dates and romance, her classmate Nana discovers the lie when she too meets the playboy. Nana sets a trap for Louise, and the result is an end to one fantasy and the realization of another.

Dramatic School

1938

The Nitwits poster
6.7

A would-be songwriter and a would-be inventor run a cigar stand and get mixed up in the murder of a song publisher.

The Nitwits

1935

Chatterbox poster
7.0

Teenage orphan Jenny Yates becomes starstruck when a revival of an old Victorian melodrama passes through her small New England town, to the disapproval of her stern grandfather, Uriah. Stowing away in the car of Philip Greene, a wealthy young man working with the theater troupe, Jenny talks her way into the play's lead role. But director Archie Fisher doesn't tell her that the new version of the play is meant as a spoof.

Chatterbox

1936

Special Investigator poster
5.4

A lawyer changes from defending public enemies to bringing them to justice after his brother is killed.

Special Investigator

1936

A Night at the Biltmore Bowl poster
8.0

Join vocalists broadcasting from the Biltmore Bowl in Los Angeles.

A Night at the Biltmore Bowl

1935