Born into a modest Kentish family, Greenstreet left school at eighteen, tried tea planting in Ceylon, then managed a brewery where he began acting lessons. He debuted on stage in 1902 as a murderer in a Sherlock Holmes play, toured with Ben Greet's Shakespeare company, and appeared in New York's Everyman in 1905; years with the Theatre Guild and collaborators like Alfred Lunt refined his range acr…
