Edward G. Robinson

His real name was Goldenberg and the G in his stage name was just a G - it stood for nothing, just filled a gap. Yet it became part of him: you could never call him anything else but Edward G. Robinson because Edward Robinson could be anybody, and he wasn't just anybody.
He could do pretty well everything from psychopathic villain ("Key Largo") to comic uncle ("A Hole in the Head"), from gun-carrying gangster ("Little Caesar") to tough-talking and inftelligent insurance inspector (Double Indemnity"), from cruel sea captain ("The Sea Wolf") to respectable professor ("The Woman in the Window").
I have just seen "The Woman in the Window" again; it's just as good as it was when I saw it many moons ago; then there was an announcement at the beginning of the film that asked members of the audience not to divulge the twist at the end of the film - naturally, people did and so, you'd have thought, have spoilt it for those who hadn't yet seen it. The odd thing is that it doesn't spoil it: I knew the twist ending when I saw it a few days ago and waited for it with glee - it works even when you know it because Robinson, or I should say Edward G. Robinson brings off the humour of the situation he finds himself suddenly in.
Fritz Lang directed this film together with another one similar film with Joan Bennett, "Scarlet Street", "in which he is a gentle bourgeois sucked into sordid murders" according to David Thomson. Thomson thought Lang brought the best out of Edward G. Robinson; he brought the best out of a lot of actors including Glenn Ford in "The Big Heat", Arthur Kennedy in "Rancho Notorious" and Peter Lorre in "M" (in German).