Czarist emigre who worked on Broadway before being typecast as a heavily accented foreigner in Hollywood films from the early 1930s. His best-remembered performance is as the harassed theater producer Max Fabian in "All About Eve" (1950). Ratoff made his directorial debut in 1936 and turned out mostly unexceptional pictures, firstly in Hollywood and then, from the late 1940s, in England. He is best known for "Intermezzo" (1939)--Ingrid Bergman's first English-language film--and "Oscar Wilde" (1960), starring Robert Morley.