{{Short description|German-born actor (1907–1947)}} {{Infobox person | name = Louis Adlon, Jr.<ref> {{cite web |url=https://archive.org/details/hollywoodfilmogr14holl |title=Hollywood Filmograph |year=1934 |publisher=Hollywood Filmograph |access-date= |quote=Feb. 17, 1934 ... Ciro's (formerly the Club New Yorker) threw its doors open Wednesday night to the public. It was one of the swellest turn-outs we have seen in some time. Harold Lloyd dropped in with his wife, Mildred, and ... Mrs. Buckley's party. Mario Alverez's orchestra furnished the music. The place is being operated by Erich Alexander, George Sorel and Louis Adlon, Jr. }} </ref> | image = | image_size = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth date|1907|10|7}} | birth_place = Berlin, Germany | death_date = {{death date and age|1947|3|31|1907|10|7}} | death_place = Los Angeles, California, US | other_names = Duke Adlon | occupation = Film actor | years_active = 1934–1945 | spouse = Rose Davies | partner = | children = | parents = Louis Adlon, Sr. (de) (1874–1945)<br>Tilly (1876–?) | website = }}
'''Louis Adlon''' (7 October 1907 – 31 March 1947), also known as '''Duke Adlon''', was a German-born film actor.
==Biography== {{more citations needed section|date=October 2023}} Adlon was the grandson of Lorenz Adlon (1849–1921), founder of the famous Adlon Hotel in Berlin, where he spent much of his childhood. Adlon was the son of Louis Adlon senior, who had five children with his first wife, Tilly. After almost 15 years of marriage, he met a hotel guest, the German-American Hedwig Leythen (1889–1967),<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z_HgAAAAMAAJ|title=Hotel Adlon|first=Hedda|last=Adlon|date=30 December 1994|publisher=Heyne|isbn=9783453009264|via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-no98104053|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211226072328/http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-no98104053/|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 26, 2021|title=Adlon, Hedda [WorldCat Identities]|website=www.worldcat.org}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://portal.dnb.de/opac.htm?method=simpleSearch&cqlMode=true&query=nid=1024593045|title=Katalog der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek|website=portal.dnb.de}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tscheiar.ch/366201/366264.html|title=Hotel Adlon Kempinski|website=www.tscheiar.ch}}</ref> called Hedda, at a New Year's Eve party in the Hotel Adlon, left his wife and children, and in 1922 he married her. It was one of the biggest scandals of Berlin in the 1920s.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bild.de/unterhaltung/tv/serien/der-kaiser-hatte-wirklich-sex-im-adlon-28011514.bild.html|title=Familien-Saga Adlon: Was ist wahr und was ist Erfindung im großen TV-Epos? - TV - Bild.de|date=10 January 2013|url-status=bot: unknown|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130110154514/http://www.bild.de/unterhaltung/tv/serien/der-kaiser-hatte-wirklich-sex-im-adlon-28011514.bild.html|archivedate=10 January 2013}}</ref> Tilly moved with her daughter, Elisabeth, then two years old, to southern Germany, while the other children, Susanne (mother of Percy Adlon), Lorenz, and the twins Carl and Louis (Jr.), were sent to boarding school and later all four emigrated to North America.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rp-online.de/panorama/fernsehen/die-wahre-geschichte-des-adlon-aid-1.3128152|title=Berliner Hotel: Die wahre Geschichte des Adlon|first=Martina|last=Stöcker|website=RP ONLINE|date=9 January 2013 }}</ref>
Adlon was a supporting actor and bit player in Hollywood from the late 1930s.<ref>{{IMDb name|id=0012283|name=Louis Adlon}}</ref> He married Rose Douras Davies, sister of actress Marion Davies. He became a war correspondent for International News Service in May 1945, sent by his wife's sister's lover, William Randolph Hearst, to a ruined Berlin and saw the ruins of his parents' home and a burnt-out Hotel Adlon. His first article is about personal loss, the destroyed city of his youth and the death of his father.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.arte.tv/de/in-der-glanzvollen-welt-des-hotel-adlon/1724420,CmC=1724960.html|title=In der glanzvollen Welt des Hotel Adlon - Leben im Grand Hotel - de - ARTE|date=16 January 2013|url-status=bot: unknown|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130116030754/http://www.arte.tv/de/in-der-glanzvollen-welt-des-hotel-adlon/1724420,CmC=1724960.html|archivedate=16 January 2013}}</ref> He died of a heart attack following a trip to Mexico.
In the early morning hours of August 6, 1945, Adlon was assaulted and robbed of $150 cash and $2500 in jewelry by 4 assailants on the Sunset Strip while driving home from a party.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Four Bandits Beat and Rob Actor |url=https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1945-08-07-Los-Angeles-Times-front-page.jpg |work=The Los Angeles Times |pages=1}}</ref>
Originally interred in the ''Douras Family Mausoleum'' at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, his remains were removed and buried in front of the mausoleum in March 1951. Although his Hollywood screen roles were minuscule at best, Adlon later gained fame as the main character of the 1997 semi-documentary In ''The Glamorous World of the Adlon Hotel'', written and directed by his nephew, German director Percy Adlon (1935–2024).
right|thumb|Louis Adlon, Sr. and<br>second wife, Hedwig Leythen
==See also== * Pamela Adlon (born 1966), American actress, daughter-in-law of Percy * Hotel Adlon, German film, from book by Louis's father's second wife
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *{{IMDb name|id=0012283|name=Louis Adlon}} *{{Find a Grave|7890}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Adlon, Louis}} Category:1907 births Category:1947 deaths Category:20th-century German male actors Louis Category:Burials at Hollywood Forever Cemetery Category:German expatriate male actors in the United States Category:German male film actors