Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#63371
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Robert Greig works on versatility rather than volume, and the catalogue keeps proving that the quieter choice was the correct one.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Robert Greig appears in 18 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Robert. Sullivan's Travels is the clearest case: a film rated 7.1 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for horror, fantasy, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Albert Lewin, Preston Sturges, John Rawlins and others, Robert Greig helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
Sullivan's Travels (1941) as Burroughs · You Can't Take It with You (1938) as Lord Melville (uncredited) · Trouble in Paradise (1932) as Jacques
Career snapshot
Ranked #63371 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
18
1930–1945
Career length
15 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
Sullivan's Travels
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
You Can't Take It with You
Most frequent director
Preston Sturges
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Preston Sturges
Most common genre
Romance
11 titles
Average runtime
1h 37m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.8
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.4
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
1940s
6.7 average MV
The 1940s are where the work and the material meet. The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Palm Beach Story, Arabian Nights — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1940s
6.7
Across 7 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1940s
7.0
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1930s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Drums Along the Mohawk, Tower of London, You Can't Take It with You.
Most productive era
1930s
11 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 1930s | 1940s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.45 films | 6.91 film |
| Action | — | 6.21 film |
| Comedy | 6.94 films | 6.84 films |
| Crime | 6.72 films | — |
| Romance | 6.76 films | 6.85 films |
| Horror | 6.33 films | 6.91 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1930Animal Crackers
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Hives.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1938You Can't Take It with You
7.1 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
1945The Picture of Dorian Gray
The current state of the argument, as Sir Thomas.
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
18 of 18 films
as Burroughs
Directed by Preston Sturges
as Lord Melville (uncredited)
Directed by Frank Capra
as Jacques
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
as Sir Thomas
Directed by Albert Lewin
as Burrows
Directed by Preston Sturges
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
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The defining work
#1
Burroughs
Sullivan's Travels (1941)
Performance score7.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Burroughs gives Robert Greig a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Lord Melville (uncredited)
You Can't Take It with You (1938)
Performance score7.0
You Can't Take It with You asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lord Melville (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Jacques
Trouble in Paradise (1932)
Performance score6.9
Trouble in Paradise asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jacques is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Sir Thomas
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)
Performance score6.8
The Picture of Dorian Gray asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sir Thomas is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Burroughs
Start here. Sullivan's Travels is the clearest statement of what Robert Greig does — accessible, 91 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Robert at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
Trouble in Paradise (1932)
Keeps the romance register of Sullivan's Travels but asks for a colder reading of it.
You Can't Take It with You (1938)
Keeps the romance register of Trouble in Paradise but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Lady Eve (1941)
Keeps the romance register of You Can't Take It with You but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)
A deliberate change of key after The Lady Eve — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Preston Sturges
Director
3 films together
Notably Sullivan's Travels
Tod Browning
Director
2 films together
Notably The Devil-Doll
Victor Heerman
Director
1 film together
Notably Animal Crackers
Norman Z. McLeod
Director
1 film together
Notably Horse Feathers
Ernst Lubitsch
Director
1 film together
Notably Trouble in Paradise
Richard Boleslawski
Director
1 film together
Notably Les Misérables
Robert Z. Leonard
Director
1 film together
Notably The Great Ziegfeld
John Cromwell
Director
1 film together
Notably Algiers
Frank Capra
Director
1 film together
Notably You Can't Take It with You
Rowland V. Lee
Director
1 film together
Notably Tower of London
John Ford
Director
1 film together
Notably Drums Along the Mohawk
Tim Whelan
Director
1 film together
Notably The Thief of Bagdad
René Clair
Director
1 film together
Notably I Married a Witch
John Rawlins
Director
1 film together
Notably Arabian Nights
Albert Lewin
Director
1 film together
Notably The Picture of Dorian Gray
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Preston Sturges
Director
3 films together · 6.9 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Sullivan's TravelsTod Browning
Director
2 films together · 6.4 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Devil-DollFrank Capra
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
You Can't Take It with YouErnst Lubitsch
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Trouble in ParadiseAlbert Lewin
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Picture of Dorian GrayTim Whelan
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Thief of BagdadNorman Z. McLeod
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Horse FeathersVictor Heerman
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Animal CrackersRené Clair
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
I Married a WitchRichard Boleslawski
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Les MisérablesJohn Ford
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Drums Along the MohawkJohn Cromwell
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AlgiersRobert Z. Leonard
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Great ZiegfeldJohn Rawlins
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Arabian NightsRowland V. Lee
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tower of LondonSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
You Can't Take It with You
as Lord Melville (uncredited)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Thief of Bagdad
as Man of Basra (uncredited)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
You Can't Take It with You
as Lord Melville (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
You Can't Take It with You
as Lord Melville (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Sullivan's Travels
as Burroughs
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Robert Greig has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Romance Legend
Awarded
11 catalogue titles in romance, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
The Picture of Dorian Gray
as Sir Thomas
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Picture of Dorian Gray
as Sir Thomas
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Thief of Bagdad
as Man of Basra (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Mark of the Vampire
as Fat Man (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Arabian Nights
as Eunuch
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Arabian Nights
as Eunuch
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Algiers
as Giraux
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Arabian Nights
as Eunuch
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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