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Robert Greig (27 December 1879 – 27 June 1958) was an Australian-American actor who appeared in over 100 films between 1930 and 1949, usually as the dutiful butler. Greig was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1878, and made his Broadway debut in 1928 in an operetta, Countess Maritza. His next production was the Marx Brothers' comedy, Animal Crackers, in which he played the butler, "Hives", and he repeated his characterization when the play was filmed in 1930. Animal Crackers became his film debut, and set the pattern for much of his career, as he was often cast as a butler or other... MORE

Robert Greig (27 December 1879 – 27 June 1958) was an Australian-American actor who appeared in over 100 films between 1930 and 1949, usually as the dutiful butler. Greig was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1878, and made his Broadway debut in 1928 in an operetta, Countess Maritza. His next production was the Marx Brothers' comedy, Animal Crackers, in which he played the butler, "Hives", and he repeated his characterization when the play was filmed in 1930. Animal Crackers became his film debut, and set the pattern for much of his career, as he was often cast as a butler or other servant. Although he did several other productions on Broadway, the last in 1938, after his film debut Greig worked steadily in films. He worked again with the Marx Brothers in 1932's Horse Feathers, in which he played a biology professor, and was featured in the 1932 short Jitters the Butler. Notable films in which he broke out of butler-mode were Cockeyed Cavaliers (1934) starring Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, in which Greig played the "Duke of Weskit", and Algiers (1938), in which he was "Giraux", the wealthy and gross protector of Hedy Lamarr. In the 1940s, Greig was part of Preston Sturges' LESS